According to a new Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released at the end of last week, voters in Massachusetts are now split on Ballot Question 2 (whether to raise the cap on charter schools). Hopping onto the bandwagon, the Boston Globe editorialized in favor of Question 2 in the Sunday paper. And the teachers’ unions are getting nervous; yesterday they filed a complaint with the Security Exchange Commission against an ad for Question 2, featuring GOP governor Charlie Baker.

Democrats have made a peculiar calculation in the face of recent successes in school reform: They are doubling down on disastrous education policies that minority communities oppose, even as Republicans push the issue and as experts chide liberal leaders for blocking choice for those who desperately need it. The unified battle to stop Donald Trump is masking the massive splits within the Democratic coalition.

Genuflecting to teachers’ unions and activists in the Democratic party, the NAACP proposed a moratorium on charter schools and has faced stiff backlash from opinion leaders. The editorial boards of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post all wrote against the moratorium, which put those papers on the side of African-American and Latino communities who live with these schools. When the NAACP established its position, community leaders publicly rebuked the civil-rights organization.

In areas where charter schools are most needed, the minority population that the NAACP seeks to represent is voting and organizing for charters. This is why minorities are siding with Republicans in Massachusetts by voting “Yes” on Question 2, while white liberals stand in their way. The issue of school reform presents the GOP with its best opportunity to make gains among minority voters

The school-choice message has even entered the wider culture. Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs partnered with a school reformer to start a charter in Harlem, and last week singer John Legend wrote his own essay against the NAACP’s regressive position on education. It should come as no surprise that the NAACP is facing backlash; they made this decision knowing that they were capitulating to teachers’ unions over and against minority students, but they calculated that it was worth it. Losing at the ballot box could change the equation.

School reform presents not just the possibility of policy improvement, but a chance for Republicans to demonstrate the value of conservative ideas. The Obama years have seen a weakening of Democratic political power outside the federal executive branch. A Republican governor winning a battle over school reform in deep-blue Massachusetts would send a powerful message about the enduring currency of conservatism, even as prospects look bleak in the presidential election.