Democratic voters have grown significantly warmer toward teachers unions over the past decade, with their net positive view of the organizations doubling after the pandemic, according to data presented by Boston College professor Michael Hartney on the Education Exchange podcast.
Hartney, who is also a Bruni Fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “How Policies Make Interest Groups: Government, Unions, and American Education,” traced public opinion data on teachers unions back to the 1990s. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Democrats held about a net 20-point positive view of unions. That figure stayed roughly stable until Donald Trump’s first term, when it rose to about 30 points under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. After the pandemic, it doubled to a net 60 percent positive rating among Democrats.
Republicans, meanwhile, have remained consistently negative toward unions since the 1990s, with about 20 to 30 points underwater. The shift is entirely on the Democratic side, Hartney said.
Hartney pointed to several factors behind the change. The unions themselves have expanded their messaging beyond classroom issues. At recent conventions for the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, leadership spent considerable time on topics like threats to democracy and broader progressive causes rather than school-specific policy.
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“A lot of what the unions have talked about in the last few years is democracy being under attack from Donald Trump,” he said. He cited Randi Weingarten’s recent book, which references fascists in its title, as an example of union leadership focusing on themes that extend well beyond education.
The polling on public schools as institutions tells a similar story. In the 1990s, Democrats and Republicans held roughly similar views on whether public schools deserve support even when they perform poorly. About 40 percent of Democrats strongly agreed, compared with one in three Republicans. When Hartney reran that question recently, more than 55 percent of Democrats agreed, while support among Republicans fell to one in four.
That means when school closures come up in places like Chicago, the conversation rarely centers on academic achievement. Instead, the argument focuses on schools as essential community institutions worth preserving regardless of performance data.
Teachers represent only about 2 percent of the adult workforce, Hartney noted. But unions also represent paraprofessionals and other school employees, giving them a broader base of potential voters they can mobilize, particularly in primary elections where turnout is low.
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He said the unions are trying to expand their appeal by taking positions on issues that have little to do with schools. That strategy appears to be working with rank-and-file Democrats who don’t work in education.
There’s also evidence that the union membership itself has become more uniformly Democratic since the Supreme Court’s Janus decision in 2018. Before that ruling, unionized teachers in some states had an incentive to join regardless of their political affiliation. Now that membership is optional, Republican and moderate teachers have less reason to stay involved, which likely pushes the remaining membership further left. Hartney acknowledged this is speculative, since the data needed to prove it doesn’t exist.
In certain urban districts, including Chicago, Oakland, and Los Angeles, caucuses aligned with Democratic Socialist politics have taken over union leadership. These groups push agendas that go beyond salaries and benefits, addressing issues like homelessness, racism, and affordable housing during strikes.
Despite the political focus, Hartney noted that teacher salaries have not kept pace with inflation or with wages for other college graduates. Education spending has increased, but much of it has gone toward hiring more staff and funding pension obligations.
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His own research on California school board elections found that unions still deliver salary increases for teachers in local races where they endorse incumbents. But at the national and state levels, the emphasis has shifted toward broader political issues.
Student achievement, once a central concern for unions, has also faded from their agenda. In the 1980s and 1990s, union leaders worried that opposing reform would marginalize them politically. Today, content analysis of their social media and convention resolutions shows very little attention to academic performance. Hartney noted that no major political figure, with the possible exception of former Obama administration official Rahm Emanuel, is making student achievement a centerpiece issue.
The new federal scholarship program backed by the Trump administration could become a test for Democratic governors eyeing 2028 presidential runs. Unions have made clear they’re watching which governors accept the money, warning that supporting it means backing vouchers and opposing public schooling. That’s not a label any Democratic primary candidate wants, Hartney said.
The broader trend, he argued, is that single-issue interest groups have stopped being single-issue. The NRA, the NEA, and the ACLU have all picked a side and now support the entire party agenda rather than just their narrow policy area. That fusion of interest groups and parties shows no signs of slowing down.
