The main takeaway is that there is a steady erosion of the Republican grassroots advantage that helped the Republicans gain a small majority on the house by winning sleeper races in liberal states and the Virginia Governor's race in an otherwise neutral environment.
This is a key point in that, for example, the places that I have mentioned in Oregon such as
Newberg and
Canby are effectively exurban, which not only include the "City Limits" boundaries but also more "semi-rural" exurban areas as well within their School District boundaries.
A bit too lazy right now to break down precinct results by school district, but effectively we are talking about school board elections in both places where a majority or plurality of voters backed Trump in the '16/'20 General Elections, and even more voted for Republican Gubernatorial candidates.
Sure the city of Newberg might have narrowly voted for Obama in '08 and Biden in '20, and the city of Canby did not, but the semi-rurals outside of city limits tend to be even more Republican than the small town centers.
School Board elections tend to be low-key affairs in general, and certainly in Oregon where they happen in off-year elections, can result in unusual successes even for candidates whom might appear a bit outside of the mainstream once local voters assess their platforms.
Should be noted that there are Oregon State House and State Senate districts in suburban and exurban PDX which swung hard DEM in '20 which provided DEMs a supermajority in both chambers, which has now been lost within the OR State Senate.
Although you raise a very good point regarding the nationalization of issues, such as local school board elections, mainly driven by the Republican Party, with VA GOV being the most recent exhibit, with obvious push back in various local school board elections in '23 in NY and PA, also providing supporting documentation, it is unclear to what extent this will punish the Republican Party for various swing district House Races, let alone State US Senate Races, not to even bring into focus State Gubernatorial Elections.
*In general*, I agree that "Grass Roots" Republican activists attempting to conquer local school boards in various parts of the country is backfiring, in what has effectively been an attempt for decades to conquer local school districts and force students to learn the "history" which they support (Along with some of the largest HS textbook publishers in the US).
Still, what is perhaps is also disturbing as well are places where public libraries are being "defunded" simply because they might have a few books in their collection which some individuals might have an issue with.
What next the "Book Police"?
Brief clip from the intro to the movie Fahrenheit 451 (Classic version from the '60s), based upon the novel by the classic Science Fiction author Ray Bradbury.
