Partisan-tinged Polk County School Board elections yield mixed outcome, with runoff coming

An organized effort to remake the Polk County School Board resulted in a draw, with the ultimate outcome still to be determined.

One incumbent won Tuesday, while another lost and a third was forced into a runoff election.

Challenger Rick Nolte, one of four candidates endorsed by the Polk County Republican Party, upset first-term incumbent Sarah Fortney in District 3, but incumbent Kay Fields overcame a scare from challenger Terry Clark to prevail in District 5.

Florida primary election 2022: See results from Polk County voting

Polk County School Board race: Rick Nolte ousts Sarah Fortney in Polk School Board race. Kay Fields retains seat

Lisa Miller, the third incumbent on the ballot, led in a three-person race but didn’t reach the majority threshold needed to avoid a runoff election. Justin Sharpless earned a place on the board with a slim victory over Sara Jones in the battle for an open seat in District 6.

Nolte and Sharpless will be sworn into office on Nov. 22.

Nolte was among 30 School Board candidates statewide who received endorsements from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and that might have been the difference in his defeat of Fortney. Nolte captured just under 51% of the vote, eclipsing the incumbent by 1,980 votes out of more than 101,000 cast.

Voters cast more ballots in School Board race than any other races

The election for District 3 drew more votes than any of the other three races, surpassing by more than 2,000 the total cast in the three-way District 7 race.

The candidates endorsed by the Republican governor won or advanced to runoffs in 25 of 30 races, according to Gannett Florida political reporter Zac Anderson. No Florida governor in recent history, or perhaps ever, has gotten so involved in nonpartisan school board races.

Nolte, who avoided talking to reporters during the campaign, did not respond to a text message sent Wednesday morning. A phone greeting said his voice mailbox was full. Fortney did not reply to a text message Wednesday.

Nolte, Clark, Sharpless and District 7 candidate Jill Sessions all signed DeSantis’ “Education Pledge,” which included such planks as opposing health lockdowns, rejecting Critical Race Theory and “indoctrination” and keeping “woke gender ideology” out of schools. But only Nolte received the governor’s endorsement.

Nolte and the other challengers benefited from attack ads produced by outside political groups.

Education for All, a political committee based in Tallahassee, paid for a commercial that targeted Fortney. The American Principles Project, a political action committee based in Arlington, Virginia, paid for an ad that showed a drag queen reading to children and implied that the current School Board supports Critical Race Theory. The spot promoted Clark, Nolte, Sessions and Sharpless as “the Parents’ Coalition.”

Fields, who has been on the School Board since 2002, received 52.9% of the vote, compared to 47.1% for Clark. Fields said she expected a close election.

“I did, because we had a lot of folks working against us and telling lies and giving false information,” Fields said. “And I knew that it was going to be a close race, but I knew that God was in control. He already knew the results. I just had to trust them. And we did.”

Clark, a longtime pastor, campaigned on the theme, “Educate, not indoctrinate.” He, Nolte and some of their supporters focused on claims that some teachers in Polk County schools are injecting unauthorized views on race and sexuality into classrooms, a notion all three incumbents strongly rejected.

“I've lived in Polk County since 1978, and I have seen a lot of campaign races, with (husband) Gow (Fields) having run campaigns and then with me now, this is my sixth campaign,” Fields said. “I've never seen anything like it in all my days, nothing like it. And it has just really, really saddened me that we have gotten into a place like this.”

Fields might have benefited from the support of Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who also endorsed Sharpless in District 6.

Fields said she gathered Tuesday night with relatives and friends at The Well, a business center north of downtown. She said she celebrated her victory by dancing with her 8-year-old granddaughter to Dante Bowe’s song “Joyful.”

Fields said she had not received any communication from Clark as of Wednesday morning.

DeSantis brought partisan influences to school board races

Across Florida, nonpartisan school board elections took on a partisan tinge, largely because of DeSantis’ focus on the races. While signing such bills as Parental Rights in Education — labeled “Don’t Say Gay” by detractors — the governor has declared the need to purge school boards of members who “don’t share our values.”

Polk County was not one of 12 school districts that defied DeSantis during the COVID-19 pandemic by requiring students to wear masks despite contrary guidance from the governor and the Florida Department of Education.

The Polk County Republican Party endorsed candidates early in the campaign — eventually switching from Pamela Luce to Nolte — and Polk County Democrats responded by endorsing Fortney, Quary and Jones. At Fields’ request, the Democrats withheld an official endorsement but described her as the better candidate.

Earlier: Tuesday's primary election races range from Polk School Board to US Senate

Fields is a registered Democrat. Her husband and campaign manager, former Lakeland Mayor Gow Fields, is a Republican.

“If you remember, I didn't want to be affiliated with a party because the school board race is nonpartisan,” Fields said. “In my opinion, no one should have accepted any endorsements by a political party because we're nonpartisan. But that was, you know, everybody has a right to do what they think is best for them. I just felt like I didn't want to go down that path, and I chose not to.”

In District 7, Miller captured 42.4% of the vote, finishing ahead of Sessions (37.5%) and Dell Quary (20.1.%). The result left Miller well short of the majority she needed to claim an outright victory.

Miller, a first-term incumbent, will meet Sessions in a runoff election Nov. 8.

Sessions, who rises each day at 5:15 a.m., said she went to bed Tuesday night before the final results had been posted. By that point, though, it was clear she had clinched a spot in a runoff election.

Sessions, director of solid waste for Plant City, faced a disadvantage in name recognition against Miller, long known as an advocate for the disabled before she joined the School Board in 2018.

“I was out there probably four to five nights a week, just was all over Polk County meeting with a lot of different people,” Sessions said Wednesday. “You know, I call it a grassroots movement, but I think that's what it takes. And that's what I plan to continue to do. There’s still such a big county, there's still people out there I haven't met with, so I'll just keep networking, find out what the needs and wants of the community are and figure out how to address those.”

Sessions was asked if she hopes DeSantis might endorse her for the November runoff.

“As of (Tuesday) night to now, I haven't put a whole lot of thought, and I don't know what the governor is going to do,” Sessions said Wednesday morning. “I would assume most school board races were decided. So I'm sure he's reflecting on everything and figuring out his next steps as well.”

Candidate expects to face negative campaigning, 'false narrative'

Miller lamented the role that partisan politics played in the campaign. Registered with no party affiliation, she saw her two opponents endorsed by parties.

“I have support from both parties because people want somebody who works on solutions,” Miller said. “If they show in November, I'm going to win by a huge margin. The group that Jill represents is divisive and combative, and people in Polk County don't want that.”

Miller said she expects to face negative campaigning from outside groups.

“I know the people that I've worked with, the families that I've helped, the staff that I've helped,” Miller said. “The only concern I ever would have is the false narrative that can be painted when you have enough money to do it. And they absolutely will have the resources to do that.”

Sharpless, an agriculture professor at Warner University in Lake Wales, prevailed in a close contest between political newcomers. He gained 51.4% of the vote as Jones received 48.6%.

Sharpless, 38, said he wasn’t surprised by the tightness of the result and complimented Jones on running a strong campaign. He said Jones, a Lake Wales lawyer, offered her congratulations Tuesday night.

“I'm just excited,” Sharpless said. “I care deeply about our schools, and I hope that was evident throughout this whole campaign. I've been a teacher in the school system, but I have a lot to learn about being a School Board member. I look forward to getting to work in November, hitting the ground running on behalf of the kids of our county.”

While Sharpless signed DeSantis’ pledge, he didn’t emphasize “culture war” issues as Nolte and Clark did during the campaign. He was asked how the School Board might change after he and Nolte take their seats.

“I'm always a collaborator,” Sharpless said. “I ran on my issues; I didn't run on anyone else's issues. I feel like I have a great relationship with the current board members. I served on both the attendance boundary committee and the superintendent search committee. They're the ones that placed me on those. So I don't I don't really know how different it would be. I'm going to work hard.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County School Board election: Attack ads, political backing