New Research Shows Supporting Guaranteed Child Care Is a Win for Democratic Candidates
New research from Global Strategy Group shows that there is widespread support for creating a new system that would guarantee child care options that meet the needs of all families. This is clearly a winning issue for Democrats, as a Democrat who supports this proposal outperforms partisanship and beats a Republican who opposes it by double digits and wins over voters who may not otherwise vote for a Democrat.
Support for guaranteed child care is intensely high and widespread. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of the electorate supports creating a new system that would guarantee child care options that meet the needs of all families.
Some key findings from the research are outlined below.
Key findings:
Supporting guaranteed child care provides Democratic candidates the unique opportunity to win in an expanded map in 2026:
Voters choose a Democrat who supports creating a new system that would guarantee child care options that meet the needs of all families over a Republican who opposes doing so by 19 points (55% Democrat/36% Republican).
Among independent voters, this margin increases to 26 points (55% Democrat/29% Republican).
Importantly, a Democrat who supports guaranteed child care performs better than a generic Democrat both overall (+13 net lift compared to generic) and among key groups, including voters of color (+8 net lift), independents (+14 net lift), younger voters (+23 net lift), and Southern voters (+25 net lift).
In addition voters offer strong support for pro-child care policies:
Voters want to guarantee benefits for child care workers, to help ensure we can recruit and retain workers in this field so all families have child care options (85% support).
Voters across parties want to ensure children with disabilities and other needs have access to care and services (95% support) and want to expand child care in rural communities and places where child care is difficult to access (84% support).
Global Strategy Group, in partnership with SEIU, MomsRising Together, Child Care for Every Family Action, National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, and Vote Mama Lobby, conducted a survey of 800 likely 2026 voters nationwide between September 8 and September 13, 2026. The survey has a margin of error of +/-3.5%. Care was taken to ensure the geographic, political, and demographic divisions of the population of likely voters are properly represented.