Ohio Voters Overwhelmingly Support Early Childhood Investments
Women, Seniors, and Independents Among Biggest Supporters
Columbus, Ohio: Today, Groundwork Ohio released the results of a statewide public opinion survey that demonstrates overwhelming support for investments in young children. The survey was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and includes 1,000 registered voters, with an additional oversample of 458 parents of children under the age of 12.
“Ohio voters are speaking loud and clear about the importance of investing in young children,” said Shannon Jones, executive director of Groundwork Ohio. “An overwhelming 95% of voters believe that making sure children get a strong start in life through quality early learning programs is important—that’s including more than 90% of republicans, democrats, and independents.”
In addition to broad statewide support for early childhood issues reflected in the survey, many of Ohio’s most influential voters in the 2020 election shared strong support for early childhood education efforts.
“A majority of Ohioans are more likely to vote for an elected official in Ohio who supports investing in early learning,” added Jones. “When we look at some of these coveted voters in Ohio—college-educated women, suburban voters, and independents—nearly sixty percent care enough about this issue that it could influence their decisions in November.”
Key findings from the survey include:
1. Ohioans recognize how critical education in the first few years of a child’s life is to their development.
2. A majority of Ohio voters believe that not many early learning programs are affordable for lower- and middle-income families.
3. Ohioans overwhelmingly believe that making sure children get a strong start in life through quality early learning programs (95% important) and helping provide childcare for working parents (89% important) are important goals for Ohio.
4. More than three-quarters of Ohioans support a proposal to provide an additional $350 million in funding over the next ten years for early learning programs for low- and moderate-income families with children under the age of three.
5. Fully 62% of Ohio voters would be more likely to vote for an elected official in Ohio who supports this proposal.
Public Opinion Strategies is a market research company based in Alexandria, VA specializing in political, corporate and public policy research. Since their founding in 1991, they have completed more than 22,000 research projects and interviewed over 10,000,000 Americans across the United States. On behalf of Groundwork Ohio, Public Opinion Strategies conducted a statewide survey of 1,000 registered voters, with an additional oversample of 458 parents of children under the age of 12. The survey was conducted August 19-27, 2020 and has a confidence interval of +3.10 percentage points.
Groundwork Ohio is a committed, nonpartisan public-policy research and advocacy organization formed in 2004 that champions high-quality early learning and healthy development strategies from the prenatal period to age five, that lay a strong foundation for Ohio kids, families and communities.
To learn more about Groundwork Ohio visit www.GroundworkOhio.org and follow us on Twitter @GroundworkOhio and Facebook, www.facebook.com/GroundworkOhio.
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