While it will take weeks for all the votes to be finalized in congressional races across the country, what we do know today is that Donald Trump will be the next president. In doing so, he made history as the first politician since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s to lose re-election and then run a successful campaign to return to the White House. Trump will pursue his agenda with the help of a Senate that is now controlled by Republicans. House control is likely not to be clear days or even weeks, but President-elect Trump is likely to lead a Republican trifecta in his first two years in office.

Federal ECE Policy

Kamala Harris’ defeat likely spells the end of hopes for a major expansion of federal funding for early care and education. While Harris had a solid track record of support for ECE and ran on plans to cap child care costs at seven percent of household income, Trump’s first term and subsequent presidential campaign were largely devoid of policy ideas focused on improving ECE access and accessibility. It remains to be seen how serious the Trump administration will be in its stated desire abolish the Department of Education and return the department’s powers to individual states or, in Project 2025 plans, to eliminate Head Start.

While Trump signed into law a 2018 bill that represented a historic increase in funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), he actually originally proposed a $95 million decrease for the program in his budget proposal. If there is congressional interest in working to improve the CCDBG, it might look like it a bill from 2022 introduced by Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Richard Bull (R-NC) to reauthorize the program and make child care free for families making less than 75 percent of the state median income.

One issue that will dominate much of 2025 is tax reform, as parts of the 2017 tax cuts were passed under Trump. are set to expire without congressional action. On this issue, there is reason to believe that bipartisan cooperation is possible. Vice President-elect JD Vance has requested repeatedly an expanded child tax credit, an idea supported by many Democrats. Earlier this year, Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Katie Britt (R-AL) came forward a bipartisan proposal to make child care more affordable, in part by increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) and making it refundable, while strengthening the Dependent Care Assistance Program (DCAP) and the Child Care Tax Credit to children provided by the employer (usually referred to as 45F).

Local ECE initiatives

There were three local ballot measures directly related to ECE on Tuesday’s ballot. In St. Paul, Minnesota, rejected voters a proposal to raise property taxes to fund child care subsidies for low-income families. If passed, the tax would have raised about $20 million that could be used to make child care more affordable for many of the city’s residents.

The news was better in Travis County, Texas (home of Austin), which is now poised to become the first county in Texas to help low-income families pay for child care. Voters there approved a 2.5 cent property tax rate increase which is expected to generate $76 million in funding for early education, after-school and summer care for approximately 9,000 children between the ages of infants and 18. The fund, which is expected to be launched in late 2025 or early 2026it’s also designed to pay for training programs for child care workers and help home providers get licensed.

Finally, the voters are in Sonoma County, California, approved a quarter-cent sales tax intended to generate about $30 million a year. A most of these funds will focus on ECE, while other parts will be directed towards early childhood health, including mental health. The ballot measure focused specifically on ensuring access to ECE and health care for children from low- and middle-income families. An advisory board will work with Top 5 Sonoma County Commission to distribute the new tax revenues.

State educational initiatives

In addition to local ballot initiatives, three states have voted on measures related to school vouchers. These three contests were seen as a litmus test of whether the school voucher movement could maintains its recent momentum. The answer to that question was a resounding no, as voters in all three states voted against efforts to expand school vouchers.

In COLORADOvoters rejected an attempt to pave the way for expanding school choice through a constitutional amendment that would have stated that every “K-12 child has the right to school choice.” Thanks to a 1994 law, Children in Colorado were actually allowed to attend any public school for free, no matter where they lived. However, the rejected amendment would likely have opened the door to public funding for things like private school vouchers or homeschooling payments.

In Kentuckyvoters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to revise the state constitution to allow the legislature to spend taxpayer dollars on non-public education. Defeat likely means state lawmakers won’t be able to follow through on their wishes to fund charter schools and school vouchers.

Finally, in Nebraskavoters approved the repeal from the state’s new $10 million private school voucher law. Despite the defeat, state lawmakers are likely to try again to revive the voucher law by passing legislation to that effect in the next legislative session. In the coming months and years, it will be interesting to see whether the successes of these three states in blocking school choice programs can serve as a model for similar repeal efforts in states such as Arkansas and Florida.

There are more questions than answers right now when it comes to federal ECE policy. We’ll keep you posted in the coming weeks and months as we look at presidential appointments, the president’s proposed budget and the State of the Union address.