Poll: Americans Trust Republicans over Democrats with Education in Battleground Districts

American voters trust Republicans over Democrats with education policy in congressional battleground districts, marking a major reversal for the Democrat Party on the issue.

While 47 percent of respondents trust Republicans regarding education, only 43 percent trust Democrats — giving Republicans a four-point lead on the issue.

Among parents, the gap is even bigger where Democrats trail Republicans by nine points. More tellingly, Democrats also trail Republicans with minority voters by ten points.

According to a memo from Education Reform Now Advocacy (ERN), a left-wing organization that commissioned the poll, Democrats held a double-digit advantage over Republicans on education before the coronavirus pandemic.

Matt Hogan of Impact Research, the firm that conducted the poll, said:

This poll shows that Democrats’ historic advantage on education has been erased. While Democrats typically enjoyed a double-digit advantage on which party was more trusted on education before the pandemic, voters in these battleground districts now narrowly trust Republicans more on the issue.

Voters believe Democrats are far too focused on teaching race and gender indoctrination than helping students make up for the learning loss experienced under Democrat policies during the pandemic.

While voters believed both parties are more focused on race and gender ideology in schools — as opposed to learning loss — the gap for Democrats is much larger than Republicans. Only 26 percent of voters believe Democrats are more focused on helping students catch up, whereas 54 percent believe the party is focused on race and gender — a 28-point gap.

For Republicans, 33 percent of voters believe the party is focused on helping learning loss, while 47 percent believe the party is also focused on race and gender — a 14-point spread.

Certain questions may offer insight into how voters view the issue of education. While the left often will prop up the pandemic as a major factor in its loss of support on the issue, respondents in this poll do not want teachers to return to their pre-pandemic teaching norms.

Indeed, only 34 percent of voters would prefer returning to pre-pandemic norms, contrasted with 54 percent who responded they would prefer that schools prepare students for jobs in the future — a 22-point margin.

This might suggest that voters have come to the realization that schools and teachers were acting nefariously prior to the pandemic in indoctrinating children — information that was only exposed to the American people as a result pandemic education conditions.

With minority voters, the sentiment is even stronger, with the gap between the two options expanding to 34 percent.

Democrats are hemorrhaging support from black and Latino voters generally as well, according to the poll. In the context of Republicans holding a six-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, Democrats only hold a five-point lead over Republicans with these demographics.

This is a striking contrast to years prior, where Democrats held an 82-point lead with black voters and a 36-point lead with Latino voters in 2018.

Student debt forgiveness was also a low priority for voters and is an issue they believed Democrats were incorrectly prioritizing. Indeed, showing a 54-point gap, 73 percent of voters believe politicians should be focused on helping students catch up, whereas only 19 percent believe they should be focused on student debt forgiveness.

Further, voters believe Democrats have these priorities reversed, as 60 percent believe the party is focused on debt relief, whereas only 20 percent believe the party is focused on helping students.

In order for Democrats to respond to their dismal polling numbers on education, ERN suggests two messaging options:

Democrats can make up for lost ground by refocusing on the education issues voters care about the most, drawing contrast to Republicans’ focus on culture wars and book banning. Democrats’ messaging should highlight how Republicans are focusing on censoring school curriculums and banning books while Democrats are working to help kids make up lost ground by expanding one-on-one and small group tutoring, raising teacher pay, and increasing mental health support for students.

Democrats can fight Republicans to parity on CRT by making Republicans out to be the extremists. That means owning the middle and communicating that in tone and messaging. Voters are looking for someone to lower the temperature and put meat-and-potatoes priorities, like helping kids catch up on missed learning, ahead of culture war fights

These issues, however, appear to be the precise concerns that saw Republicans win over voters on education in the first place.

The poll was conducted among 800 likely 2022 general election voters in 62 congressional battleground districts between June 14 through 21 and has a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

Those districts include: AZ-2, AZ-4, AZ-6, CA-3, CA-9, CA-13, CA-26, CA-47, CA-49, CO-7, CT-2, CT-5, FL-7, FL-13, FL-15, GA-2, GA-6, IA-3, IL-6, IL-11, IL-13, IL-14, IL-17, IN-1, KS-3, ME-2, MI-7, MI-8, MI-10,MN2, MN-3, MT-1, NC-6, NC-13, NH-1, NJ-3, NJ-5, NJ-7, NJ-11, NV-1, NV-3, NV-4, OH-9, OR-4, OR-5, PA-6, PA-7, PA-8, PA-17, RI-2, TX-15, TX-28, TX-38, VA-2, VA-7, VA-10, WA-8, and WI-3.

Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.