First-time candidate, business development manager and dad Kyle Goudy, 33, of Dr. Phillips, is running for the District 4 seat on the Orange County School Board. He emerged as the top vote-getter in the three-way primary, with just over 37 percent of the vote. But since neither he nor his opponent, 25-year educator Anne Douglas, who netted about 33 percent of the vote, earned more than 50 percent of the vote needed to win outright, they will face each other again in a Nov. 5 runoff.

Early voting takes place daily Oct. 21-Nov. 3, 8 a.m.- 8 p.m. Check our list for locations. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Oct. 24. Mail-in ballots can be returned to any early voting location but must be received by the Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. on Nov. 5.

Goudy has tried to position himself as a moderate, telling VoxPopuli in a June interview, “I’m the Do What’s Right For Kids Party. Partisan politics, in my opinion, are almost a distraction from trying to do the right thing for education.” And while he has made gestures like returning donations from MAGA politician Anthony Sabatini, newly elected to the Lake County Commission, and Republican State Rep. Carolina Amesty, recently indicted on four counts of felony forgery, Goudy holds positions that are quite conservative.

According to Goudy’s iVoterGuide survey for the right-wing American Family Association, an organization that has been around since the 1970s and is deeply anti-LGBTQ+ — one leader blamed homosexuality for the Holocaust — he supports arming teachers in classrooms, allowing teachers to opt out of teaching required material that goes against their “morals or religious beliefs,” removing civics instruction from the curriculum and, in a page from Project 2025, dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.

Goudy also supports allowing tax dollars to “follow the child,” which siphons tax money from public education to allow children to attend any type of school — private, charter, religious —regardless of financial need or the academic proficiency of the institution.

Goudy also indicated he is against gay marriage and against trans girls or trans women using any facilities that correspond to their gender rather than sex at birth. In fact, in one of the many iterations of the “why I’m running” stories he has shared during his campaign, Goudy noted that protecting his daughter and other females “in sports and in all public places” is a motivator for his school board run.

This puts Goudy squarely in the ballpark with Eric Metaxas, the Christian nationalist author and radio host, whose book, Letter to the American Church, that Goudy has said motivated him to run.

After VoxPopuli ran a story tying Goudy to Metaxas, he claimed 1) that he had many LGBTQ+ friends he would have to warn about the article’s publication and 2) that he didn’t realize Metaxas was anti-LGBTQ+, even though Metaxas exhorts Christians and pastors to fight the political culture wars to end the “non-stop campaign to normalize the LGBT lifestyle" and the “transgender madness.”

Finally, Goudy stated in his survey that he agreed parents have the right to raise their children according to their beliefs and values and to make decisions about their children’s education and healthcare.

He did not say whether that applied equally to parents who want to opt their children out of sex education, avoid reading certain books and challenge mask and vaccine mandates in a public health crisis as well as to parents who make healthcare decisions according to their values and beliefs that may include providing their children, under the care of a physician, with gender-affirming care like puberty blockers or other hormones.

Goudy also “strongly agreed” that children have the “right” to reach maturity without chemical or surgical castration.” He did not note if children have the right to simply reach maturity. A study of 9,000 transgender youth showed that those receiving gender-affirming care had 40 percent lower odds of experiencing depression and considering suicide than those who wanted hormone therapy to align their appearance with their gender identity, but didn’t get them.