As the dust settles from the 2024 election and post-mortems are written, one trend that deserves examination is the multiple instances in which voters across the country rejected voucher programs when they were put directly before them on the ballot—indicating that support for a candidate does not mean voters are in lockstep with all the candidate’s positions. 

For example, in Kentucky, President-Elect Donald Trump, a private school voucher supporter, received 64.6% of the vote, yet 65% of voters also rejected amending the state’s constitution to allow the Kentucky General Assembly to provide state funding to students outside of public schools. 

In Nebraska, 58% of voters voted to repeal a voucher program passed by the Nebraska Legislature just this April. Just over 60% of Nebraska voters supported Trump. 

In Colorado, where the majority of voters supported Vice President Kamala Harris, voters also rejected a constitutional amendment that would have declared that “each K-12 child has the right to school choice” and “that school choice includes neighborhood, charter, private, and home schools, open enrollment options, and future innovations in education.” 

Here in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott appeared at a private school Wednesday in Tyler to rally for passage of vouchers during the upcoming legislative session. In his remarks, Abbott stated that “more than enough members of the Texas House of Representatives [were] elected last night to make sure that school choice is going to pass.” Abbott may, with some justification, be banking on legislators’ willingness to follow his lead, regardless of what their constituents back home think about the issue. However, as ATPE Executive Director Shannon Holmes told the Houston Chronicle, the relationship between candidate support and voucher support is not as clear-cut as voucher proponents often make it out to be, as evidenced by the Kentucky and Nebraska election results. “There’s nothing about the Texas election results that indicates public education was top of mind for most Texas voters as a whole in their decision making process,” Holmes said. “We also look at other states and see results that indicate a vote for a particular candidate doesn’t necessarily indicate alignment with all the candidate’s policies.”