Even though Mary Lou Bruner went into Tuesday’s runoff election in Texas as the frontrunner for a seat on the state board of education, she ultimately lost the election Tuesday night to Keven Ellis, a chiropractor and local school board president in Lufkin.
Bruner made national headlines for entertaining conspiracy theories in posts on Facebook. She said that President Obama was a gay prostitute, warned that the federal government is pushing a socialist agenda in schools, and argued that Islam “is not a real religion.”
It appeared that the 68-year-old retired teacher’s far-fetch comments would not hurt her after she handily won 48 percent of the vote in the March primary with support from Tea Partiers.
But a crack in her lead appeared when she cited inaccurate statistics during a meeting with local superintendents in East Texas. Her comments at the meeting lost her the endorsement of an influential Tea Party group and may have cost her the election.
Ellis won the runoff with an 18-point lead over Bruner, and will likely win the general election in November, according to the Texas Tribune.
He told Texas radio station KERA that national coverage of Bruner’s comments may have helped him in the race.
“It’s unfortunate in a way that a lot of the time and energy of this election was spent on those things that didn’t pertain to education,” he said. “But fortunate for us that we were able to stick to our message, let the voters know who we were, and tonight they showed that they felt that that was the most important.”
The Texas Freedom Network, which had been chronicling Bruner’s posts on social media, celebrated Bruner’s loss in a Tuesday night statement.
“Texas escaped an education train wreck tonight,” Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said in the statement. “If Bruner had ultimately won election to the board, she would have instantly become the most embarrassingly uninformed and divisive member on a board that already too often puts politics ahead of making sure our kids get a sound education. We commend the majority of East Texas voters for their wisdom in this particular race.”
