Parents of children under 18 are nearly twice as likely to vote for Republican candidates over Democratic counterparts.
A poll of over 1,300 national registered voters run between April 19 and April 26 asked respondents which major party’s candidate they are more likely to support in their district. Among parents of school-aged children, 60% selected Republicans and 32% selected Democrats.
When asked about their approval of President Joe Biden, 61% of parents disapproved and 29% approved, according to the poll, which was conducted by NPR, PBS NewsHour, and Marist. Recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates state that there are 63.1 million parents with children under the age of 18 living at home.
The new polling follows the growing prominence of the parental rights movement, which first emerged following the revelation of leftist agendas in many curricula and government schools closing their doors over COVID-19. Progressives have thus far been associated with opposition to parental rights over curriculum.
Earlier this week, for example, President Biden told teachers gathered at the White House that school children are “like yours when they’re in the classroom.”
“They’re not someone else’s children, they’re our children,” he argued. “And they are the kite strings that literally lift our national ambitions aloft. … Think about it. If you got to do one thing to make sure the nation succeeded in the next two generations, what would you do? I would say, literally, have the best-educated public in the world.”
“You have heard me say it many times about our children, but it is true, they’re all our children. And the reason you are the teachers of the year is because you recognize that,” he continued. “They’re not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom.”
Teachers unions have also been associated with emphasizing the preferences of government school teachers over those of parents.
“Instead of everybody joining together in America to get us out of the effects of the pandemic,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten recently claimed, “these right-wing ideologues are just trying to create fear and anxiety and anger exploiting the fear that parents already have in order to win elections and end public education as we know it.”
Young people themselves are also broadly in favor of more parental control over education, according to the most recent edition of Harvard Kennedy School’s national survey of 18 to 29-year-olds. 46% of respondents agree with the statement that “parents should have more control over their children’s education than they do now,” while only 23% disagree.
In addition to a majority of young Republicans favoring more parental rights, a plurality of young Democrats and independents held the same preference.
Reporting by The Daily Wire.
