What the 2026 Midterms Will Mean for Education

On Tuesday, America voted in the midterm elections. Unless you live under a rock, you have probably heard much about what the results of the election might mean for our country, but there has been little coverage of what the results of the midterms might mean for education.

What might a backlash against the Trump administration mean for plans to dismantle the Department of Education? What will a new Congress mean for higher education? And what will new governors and state legislatures mean for the federal scholarship tax credit and school choice?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Ginny Gentles, Heather Harding, Andy Rotherham, and Rick Hess.

Note: This episode is adapted from a recent event—What Will the 2026 Midterm Elections Mean for Education?—held at AEI on November 4. A video recording of the event is available here.

Virginia Gentles is education freedom and parental rights director at the Defense of Freedom Institute.

Heather Harding is senior vice president for programs at The NEA Foundation.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

This episode was produced by Elli Lucas.