In a (mostly) one party town the primary basically decides the election, though it will be many months before the "winners" actually take office. Not everything is about race, but of course race matters. We will have had African-American mayors for 24 of the past 32 years once the current Mayor's term is up. It's a plurality African-American city, or very near it (bet the next Census changes that, though just). I voted for the white guy, not because he's white, but because the black guy is neck deep in the school reform movement. Charter schools aren't unpopular, but the school reform movement is. People see the distinction. Choice can be great, choice which siphons off money to largely unaccountable for profit schools isn't. To some extent "school choice" is like "electric company choice" and "health insurance choice". For the most part, people don't want to waste their damn time. They want the default choice to be a good one. If it isn't, maybe they want an out, but they really would just prefer to not have to choose.