Moms for Liberty candidates lose in Dallas Center-Grimes school board race

By Ty Rushing

November 7, 2023

Three left-leaning candidates and a moderate defeated a three-person conservative bloc to win four open seats on the Dallas Center-Grimes School Board, according to Tuesday’s unofficial results.

There were two at-large seats open and three candidates.

Incumbent Ryan Carpenter, the moderate, won reelection with 1,563 votes (42.36% of the vote). Left-leaning candidate Shaylee Vander Velden captured the second at-large seat with 1,173 votes (31.79% of the vote).

Conservative candidate Matthew Moran received 919 votes (24.91% of the vote).

In the District 3 race, incumbent Nancy Baker Curtis captured 239 votes (55.69% of the vote) and defeated challenger Kimberly Praska, who had 180 votes (43.58% of the vote).

Curtis was endorsed by the Dallas County Democrats and Praska was endorsed by the Dallas County GOP.

In the District 4 race, Meg Dickinson defeated Sean Cully. Dickinson captured 344 votes (50.89% of the vote) to edge out Cully, who had 332 votes (49.11% of the vote).

Cully strongly aligned his campaign with Moms for Liberty, which rubbed some residents the wrong way before the election.

Ty Rushing

Ty Rushing is the former Chief Political Correspondent for Iowa Starting Line. He is a trail-blazing veteran Iowa journalist, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and co-founder and president of the Iowa Association of Black Journalists.

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