15 Nov A strong cycle for the 50CAN Action Fund

While the primary focus of the nation in the post-election period has been on federal races, we know that for education, the work happens in states with a spirit of bipartisanship and pragmatism. The 50CAN Action Fund was created to engage in local elections all across the country to ensure we have champions dedicated to serving kids and their families.

Overall this election cycle, we supported 79 successful candidates and supported 11 who lost their elections–an 87% win rate. A majority of the races were highly competitive, yet we saw success even in those contests. In fact, in the general election we were fortunate to back the winning candidate in 15 of 18 races where the race was considered competitive.

Nearly all our states had important electoral activity this cycle, but here are some bright spots from the 2024 general elections:

• Democrat Sam Obenshain, the founder of a charter school and New Mexico’s second ranked school, won a seat on the New Mexico Public Education Commission with 55% over his Republican opponent. He joins a bipartisan board of elected officials who will focus on ensuring New Mexico students have access to high quality educational options.

• In Georgia, we defended a group of Republican allies and a key Democrat ally who were in swing legislative districts. Early this fall, we saw polling that Georgia voters generally think Washington is a mess but believe Georgia is on the right track. We shared positive messages with voters about how each incumbent was contributing to Georgia and how they were rising above national partisanship. Our grassroots advocates made over 40,000 phone calls on behalf of these candidates.

• In Delaware we are excited by the election of Democrat Matt Meyer as Governor, and believe he will be a real education champion. Continuing our bipartisan theme, we also invested in races to defend two of our stalwart, incumbent moderate Republican legislative champions running in swing seats. Both were re-elected.

• In Colorado, TEN Collective Impact’s parents endorsed a slate of 10 Democratic legislators and communicated to our large grassroots network about those candidates. We also supported our education coalition’s effort to defeat an incumbent in State Board of Education District 8 and elect Republican Yazmin Navarro. Yazmin’s narrow victory ensured that the state board of education maintained its bipartisan majority in support of meaningful education reform policies. 

Our teams around the nation are excited for 2025 and working with all the new elected officials of both parties to enact policies that will give all American children access to a high quality education.