“Voters do show up and do vote for child care when they have the opportunity to,” Hedgepeth said, citing an election-night survey by the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for women’s rights, in which 77% of voters said guaranteeing access to affordable child care was important to them.

“We can, by extension, say that elected officials should be thinking about child care as a priority,” she said.

Over 13 million of the nation’s roughly 63 million parents rely…