Trump amps up culture war agenda with Moms for Liberty appearance

• Moms for Liberty — co-founded in 2021 by Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich — has championed the parental rights movement and policy changes seen in red states designed to reduce talk of race, gender and sexuality in the classroom or school materials. It's been labeled an extremist group from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
• The group has gone beyond school board elections to focus this year on national politics, spending more than $3 million to engage voters in four battleground states: Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia.
• "There are a lot of voters that haven't been as involved in politics as maybe they realized they needed to be," Justice told Axios. "And we've definitely seen that with Moms for Liberty members."
• Trump will speak at the "Joyful Warriors" summit at 8pm ET during a fireside chat with Justice. He and several other GOP presidential contenders also spoke at last year's summit.

State of play: Florida-based Moms for Liberty's influence has been seen in the recently adopted Republican Party platform as well as Project 2025, a roadmap for a second Trump presidency written by the Heritage Foundation. (Trump has denied he's associated with the project.)

• The party's platform backs universal school choice, restoring "parental rights," and nationalized civics education.
• It has said it wants to "defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination."

But Moms for Liberty's electoral influence has lost some steam.

• In the 2022 election cycle, 47% of candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty won their races, per a Brookings analysis. That dropped to 33% in 2023. (The group disputes these numbers, saying candidates it endorsed won more than 50% of their races in 2022 and 45% in 2023.)
• The organization's mission remains "to unify, educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government," Justice said.
• In California, several conservative school board members who won seats in 2022 have faced recall votes.

The big picture: Trump's lead in swing states has narrowed or fallen behind Vice President Harris, recent polling shows. Her vice presidential pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is the most popular member of either ticket, per recent polling from Democratic research firm Blueprint.

• JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, has attracted significant criticism for past critical comments of women who haven't given birth and has called his opponents "anti-family."
• Walz is a former teacher and was the first faculty adviser to his high school's gay straight alliance in 1999. He made Minnesota one of six states that provides universal free school lunches.

Catch up quick: Moms for Liberty was founded in 2021, initially focused on remote learning and masking after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The group has 310 chapters in 48 states with 130,000 members.
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped his GOP presidential bid after he struggled to break through in the primaries, helped boost its platform in his state — which has rippled across the party.

What they're saying: "By increasing access to school choice, empowering parents to have a voice in their child's education, and supporting good teachers, President Trump will improve academic excellence for all students," Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Axios.

• "President Trump believes students should be taught reading, writing, and math in the classroom -- not gender, sex and race like the Biden Administration is pushing on our public school system," she added.

Between the lines: A third Moms for Liberty co-founder, Bridget Ziegler, and her husband Christian Ziegler faced sexual assault allegations last year by a woman who claimed she had been in a consensual sexual relationship with them. Ziegler was the Florida Republican Party chair at the time and was later ousted from the role.

• Descovich and Justice in December said Bridget Ziegler resigned from the organization within a month of its incorporation, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Ziegler is also a school board member in Florida and has refused calls for her resignation.

The intrigue: Moms for Liberty has remained successful in "setting the agenda" on book bans, said Kasey Meehan, program director for free speech advocacy group PEN America's "Freedom to Read."

The bottom line: The GOP has given little indication it'll abandon school politics as November inches closer.

• Voters will be the ones grading.

Go deeper: Republicans aim to take Florida's education model nationwide

Editor's note: This story has been updated with more information on Bridget Ziegler.