Can Universal Childcare Guide Georgia Democrats Out of the Wilderness?

A leading candidate for Governor proposes childcare for every Georgian child.

Former Georgia Democratic state senator Jason Esteves. Photo credit: Esteves campaign.

Georgia Democrats got a bit of a second wind earlier this month as the two candidates they backed for Public Service Commission (PSC) — which regulates the state’s powerful utilities — coasted to victory.

It was the first statewide win for state offices in around 20 years, allowing the party to spring back after a disappointing 2024 election.

But the PSC candidates had something that many recent Georgia Democratic campaigns did not have.

Here’s an example of one of the signs the Democrats in the state used as part of their campaign:

PSC campaign signage in Dallas, Georgia. Photo credit: Zaid Jilani.

What Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard, the progressive candidates in this race, had was a simple policy message — vote for us because your power bill is too high.

For years, the state party was dominated by former House Democratic leader Stacey Abrams, who was not shy about predicting that one day she would be the President of the United States. Abrams’s campaigns were largely focused on her own biography and personage; if you liked her, great; but if you didn’t, you didn’t.

Ask five Georgians what she actually proposed or stood for, and you’ll get five wildly different answers because her campaigns were so light on policy.

It’s long been conventional wisdom in politics that voters don’t care about public policy, but I’d have to disagree. Sure, your average voter is not thumbing through policy white papers like Elizabeth Warren’s doomed 2020 presidential campaign.

People are too busy to do that, and most folks are not policy experts.

Yet, they still want to make sure the people they’re voting for will do something for them. Abrams’s problem was that she came to be known (with some justification) as using the state of Georgia as a steppingstone to her greater ambitions.

What Georgia Democrats showed in the PSC race is that they can win if they can prove that they’re putting Georgia First with tangible solutions to the problems created by the GOP incumbents.

That brings me to Jason Esteves. Esteves, a former state senator who is one of many candidates running for the Democratic nomination for Governor, today put out a proposal for universal childcare for all Georgian kids.

The plan would use current Georgia Lottery reserves to offer universal pre-k to all three- and four-year olds; the goal would be to get to universal child care access for all kids in Georgia by 2035 (if elected, Esteves would take office in 2027).

“As the son of two hardworking parents, the father of two young children, and a former educator, I’ve seen how access to quality, affordable early learning programs can be life-changing for kids and their families,” Esteves said in a statement. “My universal child care plan will tackle the affordability crisis here in Georgia while ensuring every child — no matter who they are or where they live — gets a fair shot.”

Georgia history buffs may see echoes in former Democratic governor Zell Miller’s tenure as the chief executive in Atlanta. Miller made rejuvenating the state’s education system a cornerstone of his tenure; expansive access to pre-K and the tuition-free HOPE Scholarship helped make Miller among the most popular governors in Georgia’s history.

Can Esteves ride this issue to success? There’s some evidence that we’re going through a sort of childcare policy renaissance. From New Mexico to New York City, Democratic officials are pushing hard to get all parents access to childcare. And Georgia has seen its share of rising childcare costs.

But to make this policy pitch land, we’ll have to see a lot more unity in messaging and campaigning; the leading Democratic candidates in the race like former Lt. Gov Geoff Duncan and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms have yet to spell out such a vision.