The appearance of former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley was a testament to the group’s exponential growth and influence since its 2021 launch at the height of the pandemic.
This is the first presidential election in which Republicans are running on children’s education curriculum as a galvanizing national issue. For years, Republicans had mostly ceded K-12 education issues to Democrats and their teacher union allies, but the pandemic energized parents opposed to liberal-leaning school establishment and opened a new front in America’s culture wars. It is a movement Republican candidates have tapped as soccer mom voters morph into parents-rights voters.
Moms for Liberty has over 100,000 members in 45 states, and they used their numbers to elect like-minded candidates to local school boards and other offices and lobby state legislatures for measures.