Surviving negative campaign, Lisa Miller wins decisively in Polk School Board race

Conservatives targeted three incumbents in elections for the Polk County School Board, and two of the three survived to earn another term.

Lisa Miller easily held off challenger Jill Sessions in voting that concluded Tuesday, capturing 109,444 votes, or 55.6%, compared with 87,531, or 44.4%, for Sessions, in the District 7 race. With the victory, Miller gains a second term on the seven-person board.

District 7 covers North Lakeland, Polk City and Auburndale. Though candidates are required to live in their districts, voting takes place countywide.

The School Board’s longest-serving member, Kay Fields, defeated Terry Clark by 5.8 percentage points in the August election, while fellow incumbent Sarah Fortney fell to Rick Nolte by less than two percentage points.

Miller, 46, acknowledged Wednesday morning that she was surprised by the margin of her victory. She faced a barrage of negative campaigning, including TV commercials and mailers paid for by Educators and Parents for School Excellence, a political committee based in Tampa.

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She was also the victim of anonymous text messages sent before the August primary that falsely claimed she and her husband were facing criminal investigations.

“I thought it was going to be close,” Miller said. “But I think Polk County voted for the person they saw doing the job for all these years. Finally, when I doubted that the work that we've done for kids was, it didn't matter, I think Polk County showed us it does matter.”

The Polk County Republican Party endorsed Sessions in the nonpartisan race and promoted her at many campaign events, including one attended by Sen. Marco Rubio. In the August primary, the Polk GOP also supported Nolte, Clark and Justin Sharpless, all of whom signed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education agenda pledge. Nolte was the only one of the four to receive an endorsement from the governor.

Sharpless narrowly beat Sara Jones for an open seat in District 6.

Miller and Sessions were forced into a runoff after no candidate gained a majority in the August election. Dell Quary took 21.1% of the vote in the only three-party primary race.

Throughout the campaign, Miller emphasized her long involvement with Polk County schools, first as a parent and an advocate for students with disabilities and later as a School Board member. She described Sessions, director of solid waste for Plant City, as an “outsider” candidate.

Sessions, 57, signed DeSantis' pledge, which included such items as “educate, don’t indoctrinate,” avoiding health-related school closures and rejecting Critical Race Theory. That controversial subject is not part of the curriculum in Polk County schools.

Sessions’ campaign material and the commercials from the Tampa PAC sought to align her with Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd on the issue of contested books in school libraries. A conservative group, County Citizens Defending Freedom, challenged 16 titles available, calling them pornographic or otherwise unsuitable for children.

After reviews by a pair of committees, the district established an “opt-out” policy, allowing parents to block their children from access to any library books they found objectionable. CCDF sought an “opt-in” policy, which would require parents to give approval before a student could check out any of the 16 books, and Judd expressed support for that approach.

Sessions emphasized her agreement. The TV commercials run by the Tampa PAC showed Sessions standing with Judd, though the sheriff did not endorse either her or Miller.

“It was a hard fought race,” Sessions, 57, said in an emailed statement. “It was a joy to have met many inspiring and encouraging people along the way. I am grateful to all the people who worked diligently on my campaign. I will continue to seek ways to improve the primary education system in Polk County for the sake of all students. I wish success to Lisa Miller and the other board members in their elected positions.”

Miller, registered as a nonpartisan voter, said the outcome showed that most local voters were not focused on such divisive topics as CRT or “woke ideology,” a frequent object of scorn from DeSantis.

“Polk County wants stability and people who understand what the real challenges are here,” Miller said. “We have real challenges in Polk County with growth and poverty, and I think most of the residents here understand that and they weren't swayed by red-herring issues.”

Miller gave credit to campaign volunteers, some of whom stood outside polling places on Tuesday holding signs and talking to voters. She mentioned a parent who shared stories of how Miller helped her resolve an educational issue her child was having.

“And older voters would stop, and they had received like these negative ads, but when she talked to them and told them our personal stories, she won me all kinds of votes,” Miller said. “And I think that's what this was — people sharing their personal experience, not what they saw on cable news. And that's important.”

Miller said she planned to celebrate her victory by taking her 11-year-old daughter, Evie, to Walt Disney World. She said her children had been campaigning with her since March.

Miller drew backing from local and state teacher organizations. The Florida Education Association’s Advocacy Fund, based in Tallahassee, sent campaign mailers urging votes for the incumbent.

Miller received more than $77,000 in campaign contributions. Her donors included Polk Education Association President Stephanie Yocum, the PEA’s Political Action Committee, Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz, former Florida Sen. Paula Dockery, the political committee of the Lakeland Area Chamber of Commerce and Polk County Commissioners Martha Santiago and Rick Wilson.

Sessions collected more than $40,000 in campaign funding. Her supporters included former Lakeland Mayor Howard Wiggs, Polk County Republican Party State Committeewoman Amilee Stuckey and the Winter Haven 9-12 Project.

Nolte and Sharpless will be sworn into office at the Nov. 22 School Board meeting.

Gary White can be reached at [email protected] or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lisa Miller beats negative campaign for 2nd term on Polk School Board