In terms of dealing with schooling points, voters have constantly positioned extra confidence in Democrats than Republicans, in keeping with surveys performed by The Winston Group since 1999. Our newest survey on schooling challenge dealing with, administered to 1,000 registered voters earlier this month, reveals this development continues. Democrats have a 14-point benefit on schooling points: 50 p.c of respondents have extra confidence within the get together on schooling, in comparison with simply 36 p.c preferring the Republican Get together.
Within the final 26 years, Republicans have tied or bested Democrats on schooling challenge dealing with solely thrice: February 2001 (+5 Republican); January 2002, shortly after No Little one Left Behind was signed into legislation (even); and April 2022, within the wake of widespread Covid-induced faculty closures (even). Over the past three years, a transparent hole favoring Democrats has reemerged.
However lately, different shops have discovered that Republicans now have a slight edge on this conventional Democratic stronghold. In a summer season 2022 ballot of doubtless voters in congressional battleground districts, Democrats for Schooling Reform (DFER) discovered that Republicans (47 p.c) got here out forward of Democrats (44 p.c) when voters have been requested who they trusted extra to deal with points associated to varsities and schooling. DFER discovered the same consequence the next yr in a ballot of registered voters in 4 battleground states: Republicans (36 p.c) got here out three factors forward of Democrats (33 p.c).
Extra lately, David Shor and the Democratic consulting agency Blue Rose Analysis have additionally discovered Republicans to have a slight benefit in belief on schooling. As Shor famous in an look on the Ezra Klein Present earlier this yr:
One other actually large shift was that schooling has gone from being mainly the most effective points for Democrats to being one thing that’s mainly impartial now. We noticed that within the Virginia gubernatorial election in 2021. We even noticed or not it’s a bonus for Republicans.
So, what’s happening right here? Which get together actually has the benefit on schooling? When evaluating outcomes like these that appear to contradict one another, there are some things to bear in mind.
First, the way in which a survey query is worded can and does have a bearing on the outcomes. At The Winston Group, we ask voters which get together they’ve extra confidence in to deal with schooling. However each DFER surveys requested voters who they belief to deal with the problem, and their 2023 survey primed voters to focus particularly on issues of educational preparation: “Which get together do you belief extra to deal with points associated to varsities and schooling?” (2022) and “No matter the way you normally vote, which political get together, the Democrats or the Republicans, do you belief to do a greater job ensuring public colleges are making ready college students for achievement after highschool by guaranteeing they’re instructing college students to learn and do math properly?” (2023). Blue Rose Analysis, which has additionally discovered a small Republican benefit on schooling in surveys of registered voters via February 2025, additionally seems to ask the query when it comes to belief.
Voter belief versus voter confidence could seem to be a refined distinction, however when factored with different methodological variations (which we’ll focus on subsequent), it might account partly for the discrepancy.
Second, the methods surveys outline their goal populations and draw their samples additionally affect their outcomes. For instance, we survey registered voters from throughout the complete nation. The 2022 DFER survey as an alternative checked out “doubtless voters” (a designation with many various definitions) in 62 congressional battleground districts—or simply 14 p.c of all congressional districts. The 2023 DFER survey polled registered voters in 4 states: Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada. Primarily based on turnout within the 2024 normal election, that survey represented about 10 p.c of the citizens, all in states that Trump gained. These are clearly totally different pattern populations.
Lastly, a more in-depth take a look at the outcomes of those surveys could reveal that they’re not so totally different in spite of everything. Whereas the margins in our Winston Group surveys nonetheless favor Democrats, they’ve shrunk in recent times. The 14-point benefit Democrats maintain in our most up-to-date survey is far smaller than the margins within the 30s they loved in 2008–09. Simply earlier than the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, Democrats had only a three-point benefit.
