Labor Day marks the end of summer, but in an election year, it is also the turning point in which campaigns kick their efforts into high gear — and the 2022 midterm elections are no exception. As summer begins to fade, we can expect pundits to spend more and more time dissecting the issues that will motivate voters to go to the polls and what that means for both political parties.
With record inflation, sky-high gas prices, and two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, it is unsurprising the economy tops the list of issues voters say they will consider when casting their votes in November. Education, which was cited as a major factor in the 2021 elections, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s upset win, is currently a middle-of-the-pack issue according to a recent CNN poll — behind the economy, inflation, voting rights, and gun policy. When asked to pick the most important issue, just 3% said education.
Given these voter sentiments, it might be tempting for politicians to ignore the education issue, relegating it to a “last-cycle” consideration. But candidates who want to win should be wary of dismissing voters’ concerns about education. It might not be the most important issue in this election, but education has become an issue that strongly signals whether politicians are willing to listen to constituents or just want to collect their votes and then have them go away.
Democrats don’t seem to understand this feedback loop. The Left has spent the last two years pushing a message that is the exact opposite of what parents and voters want when it comes to their children’s education. Small wonder, then, that Democrats have lost a long-held advantage over Republicans on this issue. Strong evidence as early as the summer of 2020 showed parents were highly concerned about remote learning and learning loss coming out of the pandemic, but liberal-leaning groups, including powerful teachers unions and the ivory tower of academia, spent years trying to convince the public that learning loss wasn’t real. Only now, just months from an election his party is expected to do poorly in, has President Joe Biden even addressed the setbacks students across the country have suffered.
Instead of learning from their losses in the 2021 elections, Democrats have doubled down on unpopular policies, pushing radical social and racial lessons in schools despite the fact that parents, by a 3-1 margin, want schools to focus on catching students up on core academics.
Voting decisions are made as much with emotion as they are made with logic. By continuously refusing to address voters’ concerns about education, Democrats are sending the signal that they do not care about what parents want. This emotional blow will be a barrier to winning votes, even if it comes in the context of an issue like education that trails stated key concerns.
There have already been early signs that education will be a deciding factor in elections. In a crowded Michigan primary, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon made school choice her marquee issue and easily rose to the top of the field on election day. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds endorsed challengers to six Republican representatives after they refused to support her education agenda, and five of them lost. Primary candidates who opposed school choice, which is largely popular among voters on both sides of the political aisle, suffered defeats in Texas and Kansas.
Ultimately, candidates decide how to shape their platform and how much time to spend on the wide variety of issues voters care about. Many candidates may look at high-level polling and opt to stay away from education. But hints are popping up everywhere that education will play a larger role in midterm decisions than it may seem. As Youngkin pointed out after his win: “The polls kept telling us that education was the seventh or eighth or ninth most important issue. Let me tell you, it is the top issue right now.”
Erin Norman is the Lee family fellow and senior messaging strategist at State Policy Network.
