With regards to dealing with schooling points, voters have constantly positioned extra confidence in Democrats than Republicans, in line with surveys performed by The Winston Group since 1999. Our newest survey on schooling subject dealing with, administered to 1,000 registered voters earlier this month, exhibits this development continues. Democrats have a 14-point benefit on schooling points: 50 p.c of respondents have extra confidence within the occasion on schooling, in comparison with simply 36 p.c preferring the Republican Occasion.
Within the final 26 years, Republicans have tied or bested Democrats on schooling subject dealing with solely 3 times: February 2001 (+5 Republican); January 2002, shortly after No Little one Left Behind was signed into regulation (even); and April 2022, within the wake of widespread Covid-induced faculty closures (even). During the last three years, a transparent hole favoring Democrats has reemerged.
However not too long ago, different retailers have discovered that Republicans now have a slight edge on this conventional Democratic stronghold. In a summer season 2022 ballot of probably voters in congressional battleground districts, Democrats for Training 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 colleges and schooling. DFER discovered an analogous 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 not too long ago, 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 principally probably the greatest points for Democrats to being one thing that’s principally 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 occurring right here? Which occasion actually has the benefit on schooling? When evaluating outcomes like these that appear to contradict one another, there are some things to remember.
First, the best way a survey query is worded can and does have a bearing on the outcomes. At The Winston Group, we ask voters which occasion they’ve extra confidence in to deal with schooling. However each DFER surveys requested voters who they belief to deal with the difficulty, and their 2023 survey primed voters to focus particularly on issues of educational preparation: “Which occasion do you belief extra to deal with points associated to colleges and schooling?” (2022) and “No matter the way you often vote, which political occasion, the Democrats or the Republicans, do you belief to do a greater job ensuring public faculties are making ready college students for fulfillment 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 by means of February 2025, additionally seems to ask the query by way of belief.
Voter belief versus voter confidence might appear to be a delicate 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 your complete nation. The 2022 DFER survey as a substitute checked out “probably voters” (a designation with many alternative 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. Based mostly on turnout within the 2024 common election, that survey represented about 10 p.c of the voters, all in states that Trump received. These are clearly totally different pattern populations.
Lastly, a more in-depth have a look at the outcomes of those surveys might reveal that they’re not so totally different in any case. 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 way 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.
