(AP) – In many election cycles, there’s a quick acronym used to describe the type of voters who can help decide the winner. Think soccer moms or safety moms. Even NASCAR parents.
And now, the “mama bear”.
These conservative mothers and grandmothers, who in recent years have organized for “parents’ rights,” including banning the discussion of gender identity in schools, have been classified as extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They have also been among the the most coveted voters so far in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries.
donald trump they praised her work, saying that organizations like Moms for Liberty had taught liberals a lesson: “Don’t mess with America’s moms.” Ron DeSantis he said the “awakening” policies had “awakened the most powerful political force in the country: the mother bear.” His wife, Casey DeSantis, who launched “Mamas for DeSantis” on the Iowa primary, said mothers and grandmothers were the “game changer” for DeSantis. explosion victory for a second term as governor of Florida. He predicted they will be again when he runs for president.
“We saw that there was a constituency of people who really wanted a voice, and not just Republicans. They were independents, but also a lot of Democrats, who didn’t like the direction the country was going,” Casey DeSantis said during a talk peppered with stories about raising children in the governor’s mansion, with slime on the ceiling and crayons on the wallpaper.
“It’s one thing when your policies come after us as mothers. It’s another thing when your policies come after our children, and that’s when the claws come out.”
These so-called mama bears that DeSantis and other Republicans are courting are conservative women living in the United States. They are largely white and can belong to official groups like Moms for Liberty, which says it has 120,000 members nationally, or smaller ones like No Left Turn in Education. Some do not belong to any group.
The groups and their work began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they say parents took a closer look at what their children were being exposed to in public schools. They grew in numbers as Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020 and were motivated by what they called government overreach and “woke” policies.
Many fought against pandemic-related school closures and mask mandates, pushed to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs from schools and tried ban books considered inappropriate, such as those with LGBTQ content. They have shown up en masse at school board and library meetings, fighting to ban teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation. They have put forward school board candidates who support their positions.
Geralyn Jones, 31, of Marion, Iowa, said she wasn’t active in politics until the pandemic, when she became concerned about mask requirements and online schooling for her son, who was in kindergarten. He started asking questions and didn’t like the answers he was getting.
Jones pulled her two children out of the public school after the district adopted a policy that allows transgender students to use the bathroom or locker room of the gender they identify with, without notifying parents. She now leads the Linn County chapter of Moms for Liberty and said seeing other moms get involved in politics is empowering.
Jones, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, says he and many other 2024 candidates have reached out to Moms for Liberty, not the other way around, to schedule time to meet with mothers. They host panel discussions for the candidates and always exceed the number of seats the Trump campaign reserves for their group at special events.
“I think we’re going to be the most sought-after group or the most sought-after voice in this next election,” he said.
At the Mamas for DeSantis event there were games for children who came with their parents. Attendants carried the little ones on their laps. The DeSantis campaign has also begun selling “Mamas for DeSantis” T-shirts and tote bags.
Opponents say the warm and fuzzy image of a mother bear is a way to mask a cruel and extreme agenda that hurts children.
“The Republicans have decided that this is, I think, their golden ticket to the primaries to tear down their base,” said Katie Paris, who runs Red, Wine and Blue, a network of women who criticize GOP-backed policies like Moms for Liberty’s anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans efforts.
“Call it ‘parents’ rights,’ call it ‘mama bears,’ and try to make it sound like something that would make common sense. … The reality of ‘parents’ rights’ is that it’s just the rights of a vocal minority trying to push an extreme political agenda.”
The mama bear movement is “a contemporary iteration of a trend we’ve seen before” that goes back decades, said Linda Beail, a professor at Point Loma Nazarene University and author of a book about Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee.
During the suffrage movement, women pushed baby carriages as they marched for the right to vote. For decades, white women in the South played a powerful role in reinforcing segregation and white supremacy by doing jobs like keeping blacks off the rolls of eligible voters.
Palin was a game-changer in many ways: a young, attractive, successful woman who was also quite conservative, Beail said. In the 2010 legislatures, Palin used the phrase “mama grizzlies” to describe conservative women who she said would stop Democrats. The narrative played with ideas of rugged individualism, particularly appealing in rural areas, and portrayed women as fiercely protective, defending a traditional way of life and motivated by their children.
“It’s hard to argue with that,” Beail said. “He’s selflessly protecting your cubs, isn’t he?”
In 2024, being a mama bear may also offer a space for conservative women who have not been politically active before or who have run in previous elections. If the mother bear narrative is persuasive, Beail said, there are many women who might say, “This is the place for me.”
Women are generally more likely to vote for Democrats than men, but Democratic House candidates held only a 50 percent to 47 percent advantage among women during last year’s legislatures, according to AP VoteCast, a broad poll of the electorate. More men voted for Republicans than Democrats, 54% to 43%.
In 2020, women supported Biden over Trump by 55% to 43%, while men supported Trump over Biden by 51% to 46%. There was little difference between mothers of children under 18 and women in general in how they voted in any given year.
Last year, conservatives tried to get hundreds of “parents’ rights” activists elected to school boards, with the help of millions in donations from groups like the 1776 project political action committee. A third of the approximately 50 candidates supported by the 1776 PAC Project won their races. About half of the candidates supported by Moms for Liberty were successful.
But the movement was energized after the Republican Glenn Youngkin won the 2021 race for governor of Virginia, defeating an establishment Democrat who had previously served as governor. He thanked “mama bears” for helping him win.
Casey DeSantis also credited her husband’s 2022 victory in part to the women who overwhelmingly favored him. In his first term, the governor supported legislation banning teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade, a move critics called “don’t say gay” invoice he extended this legislation to cover all grades early this year.
DeSantis won the support of a majority of women when he defeated Democrat Charlie Crist. AP VoteCast shows 57 percent of women supported DeSantis compared to 42 percent who supported Christ, although men supported him by even wider margins. Although he improved his margin between both groups since his narrow victory Democrat Andrew Gillum in 2018their gains were greater among women than among men.
Several gubernatorial candidates who also leaned heavily on parents’ rights fell short in other states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Kansas.
Red, Wine and Blue is among the groups they’ve pushed back, using programs like “Troublemaker Trainings” to educate interested women on how to defeat groups like Moms for Liberty.
Paris, of Red, Wine and Blue, criticized the “parents’ rights” movement for focusing school district resources on issues like transgender athletes, who may represent a handful of kids in a state, at the expense of broader issues like helping millions of kids read later. pandemic setbacks.
“It’s a political strategy to appeal to the base, and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process,” Paris said.
Jones, the Iowa mom, defended the work Moms for Liberty and other groups are doing, saying they are getting backlash for simply trying to protect their children. She says the criticism is proof of the momentum behind her movement, and that lawmakers and candidates are talking more about education than she’s ever seen, another sign of how important moms will be in 2024.
“There’s a mother in every household for the most part,” he said, “so that’s a voice that certainly carries a lot of weight.”
AP polling director Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report.
