I just saw that there’s a new ARG poll out this afternoon showing Donald Trump at 37% and Nikki Haley at 33% in New Hampshire. Christie is at 10% and Dead Bounce Ron is at 5%, if you’re a completist. This spurs me to share with you an editorial conversation we were just having about how we’re going to cover, how much of our editorial resources we’re going to put toward, the primaries in the next couple months. Can Haley beat Trump in New Hampshire? Do we care or does it matter if she does?

I’ve been making my way through your emails about school board activism in your various necks of the woods. And I have to say, keep them coming, if for no other reason than the immense entertainment value. But seriously, for many other reasons too. I’m digging into them and trying to figure out which ones to report out first. But there are a few points that stand out in advance of that.

One of those points is something I’m half being reminded of, half learning, which is that there was a pretty big backlash against “anti-woke” school boards in 2023. It’s not universal, certainly. But it’s not just the story out of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, I’ve been telling you about for the last few days. There are examples all over the country. (I’ll be coming back to Bucks. Holy Crap, there’s a lot.) This morning I’ve just been reading up on one in a very backwoods part of Idaho, the West Bonner County School District. A lot of the same stuff: a bunch of freaks get washed in in 2021. They do all the anti-woke stuff and other stuff that’s more about just being against public education generally. There’s a successful recall, but not before the board brings in a new superintendent who is a former state legislator whose career went south when it turned out he might not actually live in the state. (Really.) The bigger problem is that Branden Durst had no background in education and didn’t even have the minimal accreditation the state requires for superintendents. He hung on for like three months before he had to resign. That was back in September.

Just a quick note to let you know we’re off this week on the podcast. We’ll be back next week at the standard time.