School Choice Group Warns Democrats Could Spawn Angry Single-Issue Voters in 2028 Over Voucher Repeal

Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, the largest school choice advocacy group in the country, has a message for Democrats who just won office: be careful what you repeal. In an interview with Fox News Digital, he warned that dismantling universal voucher programs could produce a wave of angry, single-issue voters by 2028.

Schultz asked listeners to picture a lower-income single mother in a state like Texas. Her two or three children have just gained access, through a state program, to a private school or homeschool setting she could not otherwise afford. Then, he said, the officials she may even have voted for announce they want to send her kids back to the schools they disliked, the same ones she had begged the district to change. In his telling, she becomes a single-issue voter and votes them out. He urged newly elected Democrats to be careful about threatening to remove families from educational settings where their children feel safe and are thriving.

The warning follows Democratic gains in the midterm elections that have put landmark Republican education policies in doubt. Republican governors across the country passed universal school choice and parental rights measures as post-COVID culture war debates intensified and enrollment fell in major metropolitan public school districts.

The sharpest test may be in Texas. Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa has signaled she intends to reverse the expansion of school choice once she takes office. In her victory speech she called the result a victory for Texas parents and said they were taking their children's education back from a government that had failed them. She promised that schools would not be shuttered or suffocated, and told the state's children their schools would not close. She also pledged that on day one she would fire Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and work to repair the damage of what she called the Texas voucher scam, ending an era in which schools are sold for parts. Hinojosa did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Her argument rests on the enrollment pressures facing big-city districts, which have struggled to hold on to students as families look for options beyond their neighborhood assignments. In Houston, the Independent School District board previously voted unanimously to close 12 campuses, citing declining enrollment. Voucher and school choice programs face similar legislative challenges following Democratic victories in Iowa, Georgia and Nevada.

Schultz predicted that rollbacks could ignite a new round of parental rights activism, and he pointed to recent history. Conservative candidates have won school board races in recent cycles as parents paid closer attention to local governance, challenged progressive curricula, and objected to explicit content and LGBTQ-related books in classrooms. Conservative political action committees have grown their presence in local education contests since 2022, when the Virginia-based American Principles Project first got involved in Florida school board races, funding attack ads aimed at critical race theory and gender ideology. That group and the 1776 Project PAC remain prominent in shaping national education policy.

Schultz said he expects the same kind of grassroots reaction if choice is taken away, especially something as emotional as a child's school. He cited Florida, where parents rose up against candidates, and against court cases that sought to move hundreds of thousands of kids out of schools they loved and back into ones they hated. Those parents, he said, became single-issue voters. He also pointed to the 2018 race won by Ron DeSantis, saying school choice moms tipped Florida for him. Analysts commonly credit parental rights platforms as drivers of campaigns by DeSantis and former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

The risk, Schultz said, is greatest for candidates who may have won on affordability and by slim margins, particularly in state legislative races. His advice: don't overread your mandate and try to wipe out a program that is popular with parents. What to watch is whether Democratic-led states, Texas first and then Iowa, Georgia and Nevada, actually move to roll back their programs, and how families respond.