{"id":12045,"date":"2018-11-18T10:01:38","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T18:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=12045"},"modified":"2018-11-18T10:01:38","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T18:01:38","slug":"thurmond-wins-race-for-california-state-superintendent-of-public-instruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=12045","title":{"rendered":"Thurmond wins race for California state superintendent of public instruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assemblyman Tony Thurmond has won the race for California state superintendent of public instruction, defeating Marshall Tuck in the nonpartisan contest.<\/p>\n

Two million ballots have yet to be counted but in a tweet he issued this morning, Thurmond said Tuck had conceded the race in a \u201cgracious call to congratulate me and wish me well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I want to thank the voters of CA for electing me to serve the 6 million students of CA. I intend to be a champion of public schools & a Superintendent for all CA students. I want to thank Marshall Tuck for his gracious call to congratulate me & wish me well. Time to get to work!<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tony Thurmond (@TonyThurmond)\u00a0November 17, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The most recent results showed Thurmond 152,000 votes ahead and leading Tuck 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent with 9 million votes tabulated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to be a champion of public schools and a Superintendent for\u00a0all<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0California students,\u201d said Thurmond said in a statement. \u201cI ran for Superintendent of Public Instruction to deliver to all Californians the promise that public education delivered to me \u2013 that all students, no matter their background and no matter their challenges, can succeed with a great public education.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result will be not be official until all the votes are counted, and will be certified by the Secretary of State in early December.<\/p>\n

In a lengthy statement issued to his supporters, Tuck said, \u201cGiven it has become clear that we are not going to win this campaign, I felt it was in the best interest of California\u2019s children for me to concede now so that Assemblymember Thurmond has as much time as possible to plan to take over as State Superintendent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thurmond is a two-term assemblyman representing parts of Oakland and other East Bay communities. A social worker by training, he ran several nonprofits serving children before turning to political office. He served both on the board of the West Contra Costa Unified School District and on the Richmond City Council.<\/p>\n

Tuck \u00a0was formerly head of a charter school network and also directed a partnership of\u00a0 public schools within Los Angeles Unified.<\/p>\n

After the initial post-election count, Tuck was ahead by 86,000 votes. But mail-in and provisional ballots counted since then proved to be a gold mine for Thurmond. Thurmond has collected 238,000 more votes than Tuck out of the approximately 3 million ballots counted since Election Day.<\/p>\n

According to EdSource estimates, a record-breaking nearly $60 million was spent on the race by the competing sides through direct contributions and through independent expenditure committees.<\/p>\n

Even though both Thurmond and Tuck are Democrats, Thurmond benefited from getting the official endorsement of the California Democratic Party, as well as some of the party\u2019s most prominent elected officials, such as Sen. Kamala Harris and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.<\/p>\n

He was also backed by the California Teachers Association and other labor unions representing education workers and university faculty. At the same time, he had to fend off a well-financed, and often negative, campaign mounted by charter school advocates who poured money into an independent expenditure committee set up to defeat his candidacy.<\/p>\n

CTA president Eric Heins said electing Gavin Newsom governor and Thurmond state superintendent were his union\u2019s top priority. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that educators played a pivotal role in this election,\u201d he said, pointing to phone banking, door to door canvassing and other activities by union members on behalf of Thurmond.<\/p>\n

One indication of the potency of labor backing in this race is that every state superintendent of public instruction over the past 24 years \u2014 Delaine Eastin, Jack O\u2019Connell and current incumbent Tom Torlakson \u2014\u00a0was endorsed by teachers unions. Like Thurmond, Eastin, O\u2019Connell and Torlakson all served in the Legislature before they ran for state superintendent of public instruction.<\/p>\n

This was the second time that Tuck had made a run for the office, both times mounting a vigorous campaign, and both times falling short.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI remind myself that winning the election isn\u2019t the end goal,\u201d he said in the statement he issued today. \u00a0\u201cThe end goal is that all children in this state and country, regardless of background, get access to quality public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thurmond\u2019s victory also means that for only the second time an African American will occupy the post. \u00a0The last was the near-legendary\u00a0Wilson Riles<\/a>, who was defeated by Bill Honig in 1982 after serving three terms.<\/p>\n

In fact, Riles and Thurmond will be the only people of color to occupy the post, in a state where children of color comprise over three quarters of California\u2019s 6 million student body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assemblyman Tony Thurmond has won the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12046,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045\/revisions\/12046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}