Episode 11: Extremism on the Ground

In this episode of Democracy and Education, Bobby Omari, who lost his bid for a school board seat in California’s Chino Valley United School District, shares the lessons he learned and the lessons he thinks others can learned from his campaign.

Among other things, he thinks he underestimated the political sway a Christian Nationalist mega-church has in local politics, including in “harvesting” thousands of votes of its parishioners—that is, gathering mail-in votes and delivering them to the election board.

Although Omari and his volunteers knocked thousands of doors, he also thinks he didn’t reach out enough to Independents and Republicans.

Since the election he has worked with others to expand an existing group into the Concerned Parents and Citizens of CVUSD which has been reporting on what the school board has been doing. He’s not sure he’ll run again but he will be very involved and help other candidates and they will take the lessons from 2024 into the 2026 elections.