Exit polling from the 2024 presidential election shows that parents of children younger than 18 swung to former President Donald Trump as the issue of parental rights in education continues to loom large in American politics.
According to exit polling compiled based on the responses of 22,914 voters in last week’s election, parents of children younger than 18 comprised 27% of the electorate. This year, 53% of this group of voters backed President-elect Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, while 44% supported Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
This represents a shift from 2020, when exit polling showed that 52% of parents with minor children supported Democrat Joe Biden, while only 46% backed Trump. This year, a supermajority (60%) of men with children younger than 18 supported Trump, while just 37% backed Harris.
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By contrast, in 2020, only a plurality (49%) of men with children supported Trump, while 48% backed Biden. While a narrow majority (51%) of women with minor children supported Harris in 2024, this amounts to a drop from the 56% who backed Biden four years ago.
Corey DeAngelis, a school choice advocate, weighed in on the exit polling in an X post on Friday. “Teachers unions overplayed their hand with school closures and indoctrination in schools,” he wrote. “The GOP is now the Parents Party.”
DeAngelis’ remarks reflect the prominent role that concerns about parental rights have played in American political discourse since the 2020 presidential election. During this time, parents and community members have confronted school board members over the presence of sexually explicit material in school libraries and curricula.
The advocacy group 1776 Project PAC has emerged to support the election of “reform-minded conservatives who oppose political indoctrination and believe in parental rights, safe and secure schools, fiscal transparency, improving educational standards, promoting transparency, and reversing pandemic-related learning loss” to school boards.
The Biden administration has faced backlash after the United States Department of Justice sent a memo directing federal law enforcement agencies to “convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders within 30 days” to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”
The 2021 memo came five days after the National School Boards Association wrote a letter to Biden seeking “federal assistance to stop threats and acts of violence against public school children, public school board members, and other public school district officials and educators.”
Contending that “the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” the organization urged the Biden administration to use laws designed to prosecute terrorists and hate crimes to go after parents they deemed as threats for speaking out at school board meetings.
In the past three years, public school districts have faced lawsuits after school officials have encouraged children to identify as the opposite sex at school without their parents’ consent. Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, the Trump campaign placed a high emphasis on the preservation of parental rights.
In a statement outlining “Ten Principles for Great Schools Leading to Great Jobs,” Trump signaled his intention to “inform states and school districts that if any teacher or school suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body, they will be faced with severe consequences — including potential civil rights violations for sex discrimination and the elimination of federal funding.”
Trump has also vowed to “cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children” and “pursue civil rights investigations into any school that engages in race-based discrimination.” Similarly, the candidate has proposed implementing “a Parental Bill of Rights that includes complete curriculum transparency, and a form of universal school choice.”
The issue of parental rights also constitutes an important part of the 2024 Republican presidential platform, which states that “Republicans will ensure children are taught fundamentals like reading, history, science and math, not left-wing propaganda.” The platform contains a pledge to restore the “First Amendment Right to pray and read the Bible in school.”
The 2024 election is not the first time a concern about parental rights was seen as having an impact on the outcome. In 2021, Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Terry McAuliffe, was defeated, in part, because he insisted that he didn’t believe “parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
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