Is Universal Childcare the Democrats’ Winning Issue This Year?
This is the year that the affordability crisis ushers Democrats back into power in Congress—or so they hope. With the November midterm elections looming, the party has been hammering President Trump on everything from the cost of groceries to skyrocketing energy bills to the monthly struggle to make rent (let alone afford a down payment on a home). Democrats have proposed various solutions to these problems, but one simple, clear policy is quickly gaining popularity as a key plank in their messaging: universal childcare.
In fact, some Democrats across the country aren’t waiting for the midterms to begin implementing it. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham took the lead in September when she announced universal free childcare for every resident regardless of income. Since then, a number of other Democrats have picked up the mantle, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani—such that it’s shaping up to be a defining issue this fall.
In 45 states and Washington, D.C., the price of childcare in a day care center for two children is more than families pay in rent or on their mortgages, according to the most recent data available; the average single parent would have to spend 35 percent of their income on childcare for one child. Child Care Aware of America, a childcare advocacy and research group, found that from 2020 to 2024 the price of childcare rose 7 percent above inflation, which itself was soaring during that period. At the same time, childcare providers are some of the lowest-paid workers in the country, leaving the workforce in near poverty and chronically understaffed. It is a broken market.
These costs are a huge contributor to the affordability crisis, and at least half of voters think the government should do something. President Joe Biden had promised to cap costs for families in his Build Back Better plan—which died in the Senate, thanks to West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin—and Vice President Kamala Harris continued the promise in her 2024 presidential campaign. Biden did change the way that federal programs reimbursed some providers to make their funding more reliable and secure, but Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services has rolled back those changes.
So, in the absence of federal action, states from Alabama to New York are forging ahead, trying to reform childcare at the state level despite a budget crunch caused by the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will strain state budgets due to Medicaid and nutrition program cuts. But especially in blue states this year, some Democratic candidates are pushing plans not just to reform childcare but to make it truly universal. If they win and succeed, these state-based reforms could help rebuild trust in government-provided services and further the distance between red and blue states on quality-of-life measures.
“As someone who’s been in childcare advocacy for about 10 years, we are at a moment that I have not seen in terms of how much space it’s taking up in the national conversation, in politics and as a kitchen-table issue,” said Lena Bilik, a researcher at the Roosevelt Institute. “So I do think we’re at a breaking point. People understand how broken the system is.”
In New Mexico, new regulations went into effect in November that removed the income requirement and increased the reimbursement rates that are paid to providers for services. As a result, Governor Lujan Grisham says, the state has enrolled 10,000 new children and some providers have been able to give their staff raises. But the state legislature has yet to provide the $160 million needed to fully implement her plan. (Lujan Grisham is term-limited this year, but the Democrats vying to replace her—like Deb Haaland, the former interior secretary under Biden, and Sam Bregman, a local district attorney—also support universal childcare.)
In Georgia, a crowded Democratic field is vying to replace the term-limited Republican governor, Brian Kemp. The front-runner, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms, has not come out in support of universal childcare, but another candidate has: State Senator Jason Esteves, a father of two who has also worked as a public school teacher and owns restaurants with his wife, has said that childcare is one of the top reasons that workers at their restaurants call out of work. His plan, listed as one of his top priorities on his website, calls for expanded early learning for 3- and 4-year-olds to be paid for by the state lottery system.
“As a leader, I can’t wait on the federal government to fix itself, to ensure that Georgians have the resources that they need to be able to thrive,” he said. “And the reality is that with all the chaos and destruction that is coming out of Washington, D.C., it’s going to take a generation to fix the damage that the Trump administration has done to our country.”
In 2022, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker expanded childcare by raising income limits. More recently, he has slammed the Trump administration for freezing funds to the state, as it did with five other Democratic-led states—a total of $10 million in federal subsidies and cash support for families—after a viral video made unfounded claims about day-care fraud in Minnesota. Illinois has sued over the freeze, and Pritzker has made his opposition to Trump, including over issues like childcare, central to his reelection campaign.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is working with Mayor Mamdani to expand pre-K to 3- and 4-year-olds statewide, based on programs already being implemented in New York City. The statewide plan, which has not yet been funded, begins with Hochul establishing an Office of Child Care and Early Education, working with counties to expand existing programs, and increasing subsidies for families. Hochul has also pledged to work with Mamdani to finish implementing the program for 3-year-olds in the city, which stalled under Mayor Eric Adams, and start a new program for 2-year-olds.
An important component to all of these plans will be raising provider pay and trying to build on the network of experienced programs that already exist, while at the same time covering costs for families and trying to expand the network of providers. In most of the country, the current system is an unorganized, uneven patchwork of center-based and home-based care, so expanding care needs to be locally tailored. It will take time: In New York state, the first of Hochul’s planned programs for 4-year-olds will begin in the 2028–2029 school year.
Bilik, of the Roosevelt Institute, said these programs have to be built slowly because the providers, whether it’s a new government program or subsidized private centers, have to hire and train more workers without significantly disrupting the private market that people rely on right now. Experienced workers need to be retained, as well, she said. “In order to expand a childcare system to be even close to universal, you have to improve pay and benefits for the workforce,” Bilik said. “If we can’t get people to do this work right, we just won’t have the workers at the level [we need].” At the same time, expansion has to be handled carefully so that it doesn’t too dramatically disrupt the system we already have, she said.
Nina Dastur, the director of state and local policy at Community Change, a national community organizing group, noted that while Democratic-led states are seeking to expand childcare, the federal government is attacking it, claiming fraud is rampant and freezing funding. “We see that as a direct political attack in response to the movement that’s been built around childcare as an issue,” she said.
Republican-led states are not investing in childcare, though—so their services will only get worse, while many Democratic-led states work on making theirs better. The result, as we’ve seen in so many other ways, is a widening inequality of childcare across the country. Some states will become easier for families to raise children in, while other states become more difficult. That’s why childcare advocates, as happy as they are to see state-level progress, still hold out hope for national movement on the issue. It’s up to Democrats, then, to prove this fall that it’s a winning issue at the ballot box.