Are School-Closure Moms the New Soccer Moms?

At the very beginning of a midterm election year, as a handful of large school districts clash with teachers’ unions over in-person instruction, the Democrats’ perpetual preoccupation with the mom vote is back in the news. Last election cycle, the demographic was referred to somewhat paternalistically as the “Facebook empathy mom” vote: female suburban voters imagined as disembodied scrolling fingers ravenous for uplifting memes. Before that, it was the 9/11-era “security mom” and before that, the “soccer moms” of the 1990s. The demographic is notable for how often it’s rebranded: Last summer, Axios used the term “Zoom moms” to describe educated women who had an outsize impact at the polls and spent a lot of time video-conferencing, even if only one in four of those polled said they cared about what was going on in the news. But with the backdrop of the omicron surge and the attendant rehash of Covid-era school policies, we’re beginning to see this voting bloc reborn as school-closure moms. I predict something like this moniker will be attached to parents who are furious about how educators have handled the pandemic and believe Democrats are to blame. Two nearly identical first-person essays appeared in national outlets recently to argue this point, suggesting the party had lost this all-important vote. Read Full Article »