THE DIVIDED CLASSROOM — In case you missed it amid the advertising noise and campaign spending avalanche of November’s midterms, 2022 proved to be an incredibly busy — and contentious — year for education elections.

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia held state school board or education superintendent races this year. Roughly 1,800 local board seats across some 560 districts in 26 states were also up for grabs on Nov. 8, according to the nonpartisan nonprofit Ballotpedia.

Who came out on top? Nobody. Neither Democrats nor Republicans managed a clean sweep.

This means the state of education in the United States remains divided sharply along partisan lines — and the education wars are likely to continue unabated in 2023 and beyond.

The bitter differences between the two sides and lack of consensus between the poles of both parties — over everything from teaching about slavery and gender identity to childhood vaccinations – offer little incentive for either side to back down.

“We are stopping Critical Race Theory from being taught, stopping access to obscene pornography in our schools, and ending the tenure of radicalism and indoctrination of our kids because the left is waging a civil war in our classrooms,” newly-elected Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters recently wrote in the Daily Caller.

Candidates who supported having race and sex-related curricula or Covid-19 safety requirements in schools won about 40 percent of the roughly 1,800 local board elections tallied by Ballotpedia this year, and tended to win in counties President Joe Biden carried in the 2020 election. Candidates with opposing views won about 30 percent of their elections, often doing so in counties held by former President Donald Trump.

Nearly one-third of incumbent school board members also lost to their challengers on Nov. 8.

“People didn’t feel listened to. Parents felt they lost agency and power over their kids’ education,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers labor union, recently told Nightly. “My concern is that we can’t have two countries. This is one United States of America, and we have an obligation to help kids — regardless of whether they’re in South Carolina, Tennessee, New York or California — to learn how to critically think.”

As they turn toward 2023, Democrats take solace in battleground state victories for governor, successful education-related ballot measures and local school board races where moderate incumbents defeated far-right challengers in Louisville, Ky., the suburbs of Austin, Texas, and other places.

Sure, conservatives lost plenty of races. But they won more than enough to show their brand of culture-based education politics thrives in areas controlled by the party faithful. Trump seems to have this on his mind, too. The former president promised schools would lose their federal funding if they don’t get rid of critical race theory, and what he described as “radical civics and gender insanity,” when he announced his reelection bid.

No state school boards with elections this year flipped partisan control, according to the National Association of State Boards of Education. But majority parties did expand their influence on boards in Colorado, Kansas and Utah while conservative incumbents often lost primary challenges.

Candidates endorsed by two upstart GOP-aligned political committees also won roughly half of their midterm elections.

Candidates backed by Moms for Liberty, a group formed by a former Florida school board member to fight school Covid-19 mask requirements and controversial library books, won about half of their 2022 elections, according to the organization. The 1776 Project PAC, a group opposed to the critical race theory academic framework that examines how race and racism have become ingrained in American institutions, saw a similar win-loss ratio.

Now 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan Girdusky is eyeing expansion ahead of next year’s school board elections, when 29 states will have education posts on the ballot, and he’s looking to recruit more support from elected leaders and conservative parents.

“We’ve done enough to prove that we are a worthwhile organization who can win,” he said.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on Twitter at @PerezJr.

BACK IN THE VOTING BOOTH — Two Virginia Democratic heavyweights are vying for an unexpected opening in Congress. They have just one week to make their pitches, writes Madison Fernandez.

State Sens. Jennifer McClellan and Joe Morrissey are among the Democrats running for Virginia’s vacant 4th District, previously held by the late Democratic Rep. Don McEachin, who died on Nov. 28, just weeks after winning reelection. The Richmond-based district is heavily Democratic, and thanks to the specifics of how the state handles special elections, the party is using a “firehouse primary” — a party-run vote — next Tuesday, just days after the candidates jumped into the race.

The voters who are able to turn out on an unusual date — a Tuesday in December — have a distinct choice before them. Morrissey has decades of experience in Virginia politics, as well as a litany of scandals. He’s thrown punches in the courtroom. He’s been disbarred twice. He resigned from the House of Delegates in 2014 after being convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor — a 17-year-old receptionist at his law firm, whom he later married as an adult and now has a family with. He even won the special election to fill his state House seat as an independent while in jail.

McClellan, who would be the first Black woman from Virginia in Congress if elected, has quickly raised over $100,000 and raked in dozens of endorsements, including all eight members of the Virginia Democratic congressional delegation. But the fast and unpredictable nature of the firehouse primary leaves room for surprise.

“All have roots throughout the district,” said Jay Jones, a former Democratic state delegate who unsuccessfully ran for attorney general last year. “Anything can happen in these short windows and firehouse primary scenarios.”

— U.S. set to name Joe Kennedy as Northern Ireland envoy: Biden is poised to name former Congressman Joe Kennedy, who hails from the Kennedy political dynasty, as special envoy to Northern Ireland. The 42-year-old Democrat will fill the post which has been vacant since January 2021, when Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney stepped down from the role. It comes at a sensitive time for Northern Ireland, which has been without a sitting executive, and has found itself at the center of a standoff between the U.K. and the EU over Brexit trade arrangements.

— Schumer makes last-ditch push for cannabis banking bill: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is making a final push for inclusion of the cannabis banking bill in the omnibus funding package. According to a senior Senate Democratic aide, Democrats shared the revised text with Republicans on Thursday in a bid to get cannabis legislation over the finish line. The new bill text addresses concerns raised by Republicans, including Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), mostly surrounding enforcement procedures and money laundering. The language of the bill also aims to address concerns about cash derived from illegal marijuana sales.

— Judge unseals new details on Trump-connected attorneys: A federal judge revealed today that earlier this year she granted Justice Department investigators access to emails between three Trump-connected attorneys and Rep. Scott Perry as part of the federal investigation into election subversion efforts by the former president and others. At the request of DOJ, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell unsealed a June opinion in which she determined that 37 emails sent among Trump-era Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, his aide Ken Klukowski and conservative attorney John Eastman and Perry (R-Pa.) — another top Donald Trump ally who chairs the House Freedom Caucus — were not protected by attorney-client privilege.

— Biden launches ‘China House’ to counter Beijing’s clout: The Biden administration today launched “China House,” the centerpiece of its effort to strengthen its diplomatic heft in its global rivalry with Beijing. The establishment of China House reflects the sense inside President Joe Biden’s team that the existing U.S. bureaucracy isn’t nimble enough to combat the multitude of challenges from communist-led China — ranging from trade to military power.

The State Department-based unit is designed to eliminate silos among sometimes redundant government bodies, giving U.S. officials from within State and beyond a central clearinghouse to share information and shape policy on China.

BOORISH BRITS — A number of British lawmakers have been using parliamentary trips abroad as an opportunity for the covert use of sex workers and for raucous, excessive drinking, according to MPs, peers, diplomatic and parliamentary officials who spoke to POLITICO, write Esther Webber and Cristina Gallardo.

One former Conservative MP, now a member of the House of Lords, asked hosts for directions to the nearest brothel when he traveled to Southeast Asia on a visit with an all-party parliamentary group (APPG), according to another parliamentarian who was present.

Another Tory MP and former minister used to stay on after the MPs’ delegation had returned home in order to pursue his “interest in [local] women,” two former colleagues said.

A senior Labour MP displayed a fondness for “Russian girls” during trips overseas, according to a foreign diplomat, who said local officials felt powerless to intervene because they worried about preserving their influence in Westminster.

Particular concerns have been raised over the activities of “country APPGs” — backbench cross-party groups made up of MPs and peers with a focus on a single country or a group of countries. The groups are subject to less stringent rules than the House of Commons’ better-known select committees, but are still able to use parliamentary premises for their meetings. These groups’ focus on foreign countries mean they tend to make regular trips abroad, funded by overseas governments or private companies and often on parliamentary time.

XMAS TREE EXPOSÉ — The day after Thanksgiving, quickly constructed wooden sheds begin to pop up all over New York City. They are there to house Christmas trees and the people who are selling them. But while many of these tree sellers look like lumberjacks who cut down the trees themselves (and some did), this is big business, largely run by a few Christmas tree moguls. Owen Long, himself in the tree-selling industry, reports for Curbed.

LAST-MINUTE SHOPPING — It’s hard to tell when the holiday season officially begins in Washington. Is it after the elections, which feel like they never really end? The lighting of the White House Christmas tree? Or do we wait with bated breath until the passage of the annual omnibus spending bill?

If you’ve been busying yourself with work and paying too much attention to the Congressional calendar to buy those plane tickets home or dust off the decorations in the attic, and now the kids are waiting for their presents like politicians waiting for precinct returns, we get it, writes Jesús A. Rodríguez. Some of our readers, we imagine, are probably trying to avert a government shutdown.

But even if that’s the case, you can’t show up to a holiday party empty-handed. Not to worry: We’ve put together the perfect gift guide for the politically obsessed D.C. dwellers in your life — and even for that one cousin who always asks you how things are going in “the swamp.”

Find last-minute gift ideas for everyone from your aunt who’s a self-described member of the K-Hive to your Trump-loving cousin.