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2020 School Board Elections

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This page contains links to all school board elections covered by Ballotpedia in 2020 by state. Ballotpedia covers school board elections in 475 school districts. This includes all school districts in the 100 largest cities by population and the 200 largest school districts by student enrollment. Ballotpedia also covers all school board recalls in the United States.

For information on elections happening this year, click here.

Battleground 2020 school board elections[edit]

Kansas State Board of Education election[edit]

See also: Kansas State Board of Education election, 2020

Kansas held an election for five of 10 seats on the state board of education on November 3, 2020. Two races were contested. In District 2, Melanie Haas (D) defeated Benjamin Hodge (R), and in District 8 Betty Arnold (D) defeated incumbent Kathy Busch (R). District 2 incumbent Steve Roberts (R) did not run for re-election, instead running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Kansas.

In July, the Board received attention for its 5-5 vote that invalidated Governor Laura Kelly’s (D) executive order to postpone all Kansas school reopenings until September 9, 2020. Roberts voted to veto the order and Busch voted to uphold it. Leading up to the 2020 election, Republicans had an 8-2 majority on the board.^[1]

Roberts defeated Chris Cindric (D) in the 2016 District 2 board of education election 52% to 49%. In 2016 and 2012, Busch ran unopposed in District 8. Across all 10 districts, an incumbent board member had not been defeated in a general election since at least 2012.

According to its website, the Kansas State Board of Education’s general powers include accrediting school systems, the establishment of curriculum standards, certifying teachers and administrators, and generally supervising public schools.^[2] Board District 2 includes school districts in part of Johnson County and part of Wyandotte County. Board District 8 includes school districts in part of Sedgwick County and part of Butler County.^[3]

School board elections by state[edit]

Ballotpedia provides in-depth coverage of school board elections in America's largest school districts by enrollment. Our coverage includes school board member and candidate profiles, noteworthy election issues, district data, and more. We publish election results following each election. Ballotpedia also publishes The Tap, a weekly newsletter covering both recent and upcoming political news and elections.

In addition to the 200 largest school districts in the nation, Ballotpedia covers the additional school districts that overlap with the 100 largest cities by population in the United States.

Alabama[edit]

Alaska[edit]

Arizona[edit]

Arkansas[edit]

California[edit]

D.C.[edit]

Florida[edit]

Georgia[edit]

Idaho[edit]

Indiana[edit]

Kentucky[edit]

Louisiana[edit]

Maryland[edit]

Editor's note: Maryland school board primary elections were originally scheduled on April 28, 2020. In an announcement on March 17, 2020, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) postponed the statewide primary election from April 28, 2020, to June 2, 2020, amid concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.^[4]

Michigan[edit]

Minnesota[edit]

Mississippi[edit]

Missouri[edit]

Editor's note: Missouri school board elections were originally scheduled on April 7, 2020. On March 18, 2020, Gov. Mike Parson (R) released an official statement postponing all Missouri municipal elections until June 2, 2020, amid concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.^[5]

Nebraska[edit]

Nevada[edit]

New Jersey[edit]

New York[edit]

North Carolina[edit]

Oklahoma[edit]

South Carolina[edit]

Tennessee[edit]

Texas[edit]

Utah[edit]

Virginia[edit]

Wisconsin[edit]

Historical election data[edit]

Methodology note: This report does not include write-in candidates unless an incumbent ran as a write-in.

From 2018 to 2023, Ballotpedia covered elections for 5,002 school board seats in 1,703 districts. Ballotpedia normally covers school board elections in the 200 largest school districts by student enrollment and the school districts that overlap the 100 largest cities by population. However, in 2019, we also covered all school districts up for election in the state of North Carolina. Those districts are included in this data.

We found that between 24% and 40% of elections were unopposed each year, that incumbents won between 51% and 61% of seats each year, and that between 79% and 89% of incumbents who sought re-election won each year.

Details on each year's election statistics can be found in the table below.

Seats won by incumbents and newcomers[edit]

Incumbents won a larger percentage of seats in the 2018 school board elections compared to the 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 elections, and 2023

Incumbency success rates[edit]

Incumbents who ran against challengers in 2019 had a higher contested success rate than those who ran against challengers in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Incumbents in 2019 also had a higher overall success rate compared to the other four years.

Analysis of local elections[edit]

In 2020, Ballotpedia covered elections for mayor, city council, and all other city officials in the 100 largest cities by population in the United States, as well as elections for county officials whose jurisdictions overlapped with those cities.

Election analysis[edit]

• Ballotpedia's 2020 Candidate Connection report
• Rematches in 2020 general elections
• Analysis of rejected ballots in the 2020 general election
• Analysis of ballot curing in the 2020 general election
• Analysis of voter turnout in the 2020 general election

Municipal elections

• Partisanship in United States municipal elections (2020)

See also[edit]

• School Boards and School Board Elections

External links[edit]

• National Center for Education Statistics

Footnotes[edit]

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