Following the Money in School Board Elections, part 2
Forward Albemarle
In a previous blog post, Forward Albemarle shed light on financial contributions to and expenditures by some candidates for the Albemarle County School Board. In particular, we highlighted several prominent individuals whose names appeared in publicly-available records. For instance, we revealed that Meg Scalia Bryce, at-large candidate, accepted donations from prominent right-wing activists like Ann McLean, who withdrew as Governor Youngkin’s nominee to the Board of Historic Resources last year after she was found to have praised pro-Confederate monuments and argued that secession was not treason. We also disclosed that Joann McDermid, who is running for the White Hall seat, gave thousands of dollars to Rob Schilling, the far-right talk show host who has regularly denigrated public education as “government schools” and who aired an unauthorized video of children from Johnson Elementary reading from a book supporting LGBTQIA+ acceptance that was later picked up by national far-right outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Signal.
In this post, we do a deeper dive into who is contributing to both of these candidates. Our rationale is twofold. First, we believe in the importance of transparency, which, as the U.S. Supreme Court has explained, “enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to … speakers and messages.” Second, since these candidates’ campaigns have claimed they are “independent” and “non-partisan,” we decided to evaluate who is financially backing them. Specifically, we wanted to empirically evaluate whether these claims of lack of partisanship were actually supported by data.
The results of our study are revealing: it shows that both Meg Scalia Bryce’s and Joann McDermid’s candidacies are financially underwritten primarily by Republicans. Before we get to the data, however, a few words about our study’s methodology.
We examined publicly-available campaign finance records for both candidates’ campaigns from January 1 through August 31, 2023 (the most recent reporting period available), which by law must disclose all persons and entities that contribute an aggregate of more than $100 during a two-year period. We then cross-referenced these donors with information from the Virginia Department of Elections on voter registration and voting history. Since Virginia does not have voter registration by party like many other states, we instead relied on a proxy for partisan affiliation—which party’s primaries, if any, the donor participated in since 2000. Although there is not a perfect correlation between partisan identity and primary voting since Virginia has open primaries (meaning any registered voter can participate), in general, participation in a party’s primary suggests that the voter’s political beliefs and/or values are generally aligned with that party. This is especially true for the Republican party, which has required a so-called “loyalty oath” for its primary voters indicating that they self-identify as a Republican and that they pledge to support the party’s nominee in the general election.
From this information, we classified each donor as falling into one of several categories of partisanship based on their primary election participation. “Only Republican” is designated for individuals who voted exclusively in Republican primaries from 2001 through 2022; as far as we can tell, these voters never voted in a Democratic primary in Virginia at any level (federal, state, or local) during this time. “Mostly Republican” is for donors who voted in more Republican primaries than Democratic primaries during this time, but voted in at least one of each party’s primaries. “Equal” is self-explanatory; it means the voter participated in an equal number of primaries for both parties during this time period. “Mostly Democratic” and “Only Democratic” are the mirror-image of the “Mostly Republican” and “Only Republican” labels previously described. “Neither party” means that the donor was not on record as voting in any party’s primary since 2000. Finally, “No data” means that information was not available because the donor was not registered to vote in Virginia and/or was registered to vote in another state.
So what does this data reveal? Let’s look at Meg Scalia Bryce first. It shows that the overwhelming majority of her donors identify as Republican. Nearly two-thirds of the money she received from itemized contributors (i.e., donors who cumulative donated over $100) that her campaign has received to date ($38,000 out of $58,410) voted only in Republican primaries. Another sizable chunk of money ($6,660) came from donors who mostly voted in Republican primaries, but also voted in a Democratic primary at some point. Only a very small fraction of Bryce’s itemized donations (under 4%) came from donors who voted mostly or exclusively in Democratic primaries. This information is represented in Figure 1 below. In short, the evidence seems clear: Meg Scalia Bryce is overwhelmingly financially backed by Republicans.
Figure 1: Meg Scalia Bryce’s Donors by Primary Voting History
The partisanship of Joann McDermid’s donors is even more stark: over 90% of the donations her campaign received from itemized contributors ($11,711 of $12,805) came from only or mostly Republican voters. And not a single publicly-disclosed donor of McDermid’s cast more ballots in a Democratic primary between 2001 and 2020. This data is depicted in Figure 2 below. Again, the evidence seems clear: McDermid is being funded almost exclusively by Republicans.
Figure 2: Joann McDermid’s Donors by Primary Voting History
The partisan lean of Bryce’s and McDermid’s donors also is apparent when looking at individuals who donated to both of their campaigns. For instance, coal baron Richard Baxter Gilliam, who has contributed over $5 million to Republican candidates, causes, and political action committees since 2000 (including $300,000 to Governor Youngkin), donated to both of their campaigns. Similarly, John Lowry, current chair of the Albemarle County Republican Party and a former GOP candidate for the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, contributed to both Bryce and McDermid. And Randy Zachrisson, who lost a school board race in 2021 while attacking ACPS for its equity and inclusion policies, has donated to both campaigns as well.
In sum, Meg Scalia Bryce and Joann McDermid are financially assisted, supported, and backed by Republicans. Far from being nonpartisan, they have apparently aligned themselves with a political party that seeks to slash funding to education, promote voucher programs that would drain badly-needed resources from our public schools, ban books in public school libraries, and gut equity and inclusion policies that benefit students of color, English-language learners, LGBTQIA+ students, and other vulnerable children.
In the interests of transparency, we note that Forward Albemarle has endorsed Allison Spillman and Rebecca Berlin, who are Bryce’s and McDermid’s opponents. Members of Forward Albemarle’s Executive Board also have donated and volunteered in their individual capacity to Ms. Spillman’s and Dr. Berlin’s campaigns, as well as Democratic candidates in other elections. But unlike some, we do not attempt to downplay or hide this information, much of which is publicly available in any event. Instead, we proudly support candidates across the board, for all offices, who align with Forward Albemarle’s core values of excellence, equity, and inclusion in our public schools and supporting teachers and staff.
Footnotes: 1. These records are available upon request to a variety of enumerated individuals and organizations. Only the fact that a voter has participated in a particular election is available, not who any voter actually voted for.
2. Interestingly, many of these donors repeatedly voted in Republican primaries during the relevant time span (2001-2022) but only voted in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, when the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, was unopposed and therefore the Republican party did not hold a presidential primary that year. It is unclear whether some of these ballots were cast as part of so-called “Operation Chaos,” where Donald Trump advocated for Republicans to participate in Democratic primaries with the intent of interfering with Democrats’ choice of nominee.