Waukesha's purple wave: Local activists flip the script on partisan school board takeovers
The headlines following Wisconsin’s April 2026 spring election told a story of Democratic triumph: Chris Taylor expanded the liberal majority on the State Supreme Court, and in a stunning upset, the candidate supported by Democrats, Alicia Halvensleben, defeated Republican state Rep. Scott Allen to win the nominally nonpartisan mayoral race in the city of Waukesha, in the heart of a Republican-leaning area that has been key to past Wisconsin GOP victories.
But further down the ballot, a quieter, more granular political battle reached a turning point. In school board races across the county, a multi-year, well-funded right wing project to seize control of school policymaking came to a grinding halt due to years of community-led organizing.
Since 2021, the Republican Party of Waukesha County’s WISRED initiative has systematically targeted down-ballot races as part of a precinct-focused strategy aimed to energize conservative voters in low-turnout elections. This relied mostly on manufacturing outrage around “culture war” topics in public education and resulted in partisan majorities installed on school boards across the county.
2026 saw another installment of this effort. This time the county was blanketed by a range of competing, and in some cases overlapping, endorsements from a variety of organizations including WISRED, Moms for Liberty, The 1776 Project PAC, The Heartland Post, Blue Sky Waukesha, The Waukesha Dems, KM Alliance, the Alliance for Education Waukesha, Grassroots Germantown, and Grassroots Menomonee Falls.
This cycle, however, marked a dramatic reversal of fortune for right-wing groups. So-called “conservative” candidates backed by WISRED, Moms for Liberty, and The 1776 Project PAC won around 60% of their races in this Republican stronghold, hardly the dominant track record of previous cycles.
https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2026/04/13/waukeshas-purple-wave-local-activists-flip-the-script-on-partisan-school-board-takeovers/