Each week during the NFL season, ESPN’s Dan Graziano pens a column that assesses the hot takes of the moment and judges whether they’re overreactions. It’s a useful device I’ve occasionally borrowed. Well, last week’s midterm election big blue wave has elicited a—need I say it?—flood of takes about the implications for education. Let’s wade in.

The Democrats won so big, they’re sure to overreach. With more than 250 seats in the House, Senate seats in South Carolina and Kansas (!), and gubernatorial triumphs in Ohio and Texas (!!), the Democrats had an epic night. It’s drawn comparisons to the historic post-Watergate midterms in 1974. Democrats may ultimately flip a staggering nine seats in the Senate (and that’s with a GOP-friendly map!). There’s a DSA mayor in D.C., an emboldened hard-left bloc in the House, and Senator Abdul El-Sayed representing Michigan. The party’s more extreme voices are claiming a mandate. In education, this means we’re in for DEI: The Sequel, a crusade against school choice, and an evisceration of campus reforms.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

Over-interpreting election victories has become a way of life, and it’s a problem. Both parties have repeatedly mistaken electoral repudiation as a license to run wild. And, make no mistake, this election was a repudiation of Republicans—but not a mandate for an ambitious Democratic agenda. For one thing, the public still doesn’t trust Democrats (even with the Republican brand a raging dumpster fire). For another, Democrats didn’t sketch much of an agenda beyond “do something about the cost of living, stop bombing Iran, and end White House corruption.”

But there’s a decent chance this go-round that Democrats won’t mistake public frustration for an ideological mandate. Why? Well, it’s a bit paradoxical: The Democratic sweep was sooooo big that the party suddenly has a hefty chunk of officeholders elected by right-leaning constituencies. The marquee Democratic wins were in red states (Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, Ohio, Iowa, maybe Mississippi) and featured candidates who presented as sensible problem-solvers. Think of Iowa’s new governor, Rob Sand, insisting, “Like most Iowa parents, we want to focus on math and reading—not political agendas from either extreme.” Whether this is sincere is almost beside the point. When Republican governors get elected in blue states (like Hogan in Maryland, Scott in Vermont, or Baker in Massachusetts), they thrive by styling themselves as centrists who can rein in progressive excesses. Red-state Dems won by playing to the normie vote and will have incentive to govern accordingly.

In Washington, the massive House majority means the Democratic leadership will be able to lose dozens of votes on any given bill. This dilutes the influence of the DSA-progressive caucus, which won’t be able to hold presumptive Speaker Hakeem Jeffries hostage the same way the MAGA fringe did Speaker Mike Johnson. The “Squad” added new faces, but the centrist Blue Dog contingent added even more. In the Senate, a comfortable margin and an influx of red-state senators may temper the influence of high-profile progressives like Senator-elect El-Sayed.

Now, Democrats certainly could still let enthusiasm get the best of them. That’s what happened in the run-up to the 2020 Democratic primary. But last week’s win yielded a whole lot of centrist ballast. And the party has just been gifted a glaring, hard-to-miss lesson in the dangers of misreading the public mood. If I had money on the line, I’d bet that we’ll see Democrats regulating school choice programs, paring back state tests, and making nice with the teacher unions but won’t see them eliminating school choice programs, gutting “science of reading” laws, or reimposing DEI policies.

The new campus civic centers had better watch their backs. A signature Republican higher ed reform has been the push to establish civic centers at flagship universities. Several newish centers are in red states that elected Democratic governors, including those at the University of Texas, the University of Iowa, and Ohio State University. These programs may be in hot water.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

Policymakers doubted that university leaders or faculty would support civic centers designed to challenge academic groupthink and be redoubts for traditionalist scholars of Western civilization, so they sought to insulate them from the existing campus bureaucracy. This meant giving centers some degree of formal autonomy, having them report directly to the governing board, providing them with earmarked funding, or what-have-you.

Well, those arrangements rested on the assumption that these programs could rely on the protection and patronage of friendly public officials. In deep red states like Texas, Iowa, and Ohio, that seemed like a safe bet. Now, not so much. While it’s not clear that new governors or legislators will target these programs, the centers will surely have fewer allies and more critics as new appointees are named to state agencies and boards over time. This uncertainty will make it tougher for them to recruit faculty or raise funds, and there’s concern these ventures will be co-opted or hollowed out.

The new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit is in trouble. The lion’s share of congressional Democrats have called for eliminating the FSTC, and soon the party will hold hefty majorities in both chambers of Congress. Last month, Biden Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona scathingly denounced the FSTC as a “privatization” scheme. The teacher unions and Education Trust are jointly attacking it as an attack on public education. The FSTC is hanging by a thread.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

The day after the election, New Mexico’s Democratic governor made her state the 32nd to opt into the FSTC, following in the steps of New York’s Kathy Hochul and Colorado’s Jared Polis. Democrats for Education Reform and the center-left Third Way are urging Democratic governors to embrace the FSTC as a tool to support public school tutoring and afterschool programs.

Meanwhile, it’s true that congressional Democrats have called for abolishing the FSTC. Given the budget math, doing so would allow them to spend $25 billion a year on preferred programs (like Affordable Care Act subsidies). While Trump could veto any effort to eliminate the FSTC, one school of thought is he’d be willing to sell it out if Democrats offer a deal that catches his fancy.

Still, the FSTC isn’t in big trouble yet. It’s probably safe for the next two years, though it could well be on the chopping block if Democrats win the White House and retain Congress in 2028. Ultimately, its fate will depend on how many kids benefit from it in 2027 and 2028, if more blue states opt in, whether Democratic governors who won in red states embrace it, how much money flows to public schools, and whether it gets tarnished by fraud or misconduct. In other words, there are a lot of variables in play.

Champagne corks are popping across academe because Trump’s aggressive efforts against higher education are about to end. College officials squeezed by changes to student lending and federal pressure have mostly been laying low and hoping to wait out the administration. Well, they’ve done it. Congressional oversight and Democratic pushback are going to spell the end of Trump’s investigations and offer relief.

Verdict: OVERREACTION  

It’s understandable that there’s a sense of relief, especially at institutions like Harvard that have been in Trump’s crosshairs. But campus officials shouldn’t relax too much.

For a Democratic party focused on affordability, the cost of college is a big issue. Any proposed solution is likely to entail earmarking more money for higher ed. But there are also many Democrats who want colleges to find ways to control costs (as presumptive Senate education committee chair Bernie Sanders has previously urged). Changes to student lending (including the graduate school lending caps) are now law. Reversing those will require legislation, and even Democrats skeptical of the OBBBA reforms aren’t necessarily eager to simply reopen the lending spigot or let institutions go back to freely pocketing federal loans while issuing garbage degrees.

At the same time, the investigations, executive orders, pauses in grant funding, and changes to student visas are the products of executive action. Democrats will be able to provide oversight and check some of this through budget riders or appropriations language, but they won’t be able to stop most of it. One consequence of the Trump administration’s reliance on executive action is that Congress has been effectively marginalized. Another, of course, is that most of what he’s done can be readily reversed—though not until the next guy or gal is in the Oval Office.

Washington, D.C. will be the acid test for where the left wants to go on education. D.C. elected Democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George on Tuesday to succeed three-term mayor Muriel Bowser. Lewis George will have control of the schools, no state government to worry about, and a friendly Congress. This creates a perfect laboratory for the DSA to showcase their education agenda on the same stage once trod by Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

Obviously, Lewis George lacks the cachet of New York City’s Zohran Mamdani. But what she does have is a free hand to lead on education. Whereas Mamdani has had to spar with Governor Kathy Hochul and state legislators, Lewis George takes over a city that’s an entity unto itself. She’ll have extraordinary freedom to lead in a city with copious school choice and a history of high-profile school reform.

Lewis George has pledged to end D.C.’s pioneering teacher evaluation system, pursue universal childcare, expand afterschool programs, improve special ed, and reduce chronic absenteeism. Abolishing D.C.’s IMPACT program (perhaps the one teacher evaluation effort that’s actually delivered) would be a big sop to the union and a black eye for Democrats on education. As for the others, they’re mostly just a jumble of new spending and buzzwords.

But would an empowered DSA mayor really settle for that sort of nothingburger? After all, unlike all those new red-state officeholders, Lewis George can cut loose. Will she go after D.C.’s longstanding voucher program or the city’s many charter schools? What might she pursue on standards, testing, or hot-button cultural disputes? How will she deal with the unions? Since the DSA hasn’t had much to say about schools, her mayoralty will tell us much about how radical its education agenda really is in practice.

Gender identity remains a third rail for Democrats, and Republicans will continue to push hard on it in the run-up to 2028. Referenda requiring that school sports or facilities be organized by biological sex were on the ballot in Arizona, Nebraska, Colorado, and Washington, and all four passed (or look poised to pass) amidst big Democratic wins.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

It’s clear that most voters (even on a blue night in blue states) are for organizing school sports and locker rooms on the basis of biological sex. The margins, though, were smaller than I’d have expected. While this is often characterized as a 70–30 issue, the results were more like 55–45. Now, this could mean that public sentiment is shifting, but it’s probably more accurate to say they reflect a blue tsunami and cooling temperatures.

Look, the ferocious backlash on gender identity emerged in response to radical social change being foisted upon a dubious public by crusading gender activists. Mainstream media, Democratic officeholders, and education leaders dismissed legitimate concerns as hateful, transphobic bigotry. It felt like a massive experiment in gaslighting, building to a furious yawp that culminated in Trump’s famous 2024 “they/them” ad.

Things have cooled. Now, The New York Times is open to questioning the science behind gender dysphoria, and education leaders acknowledge there are legitimate concerns. Democratic candidates won while adopting middle-ground positions, and more than two dozen states have enacted policies requiring sports participation reflect biological sex. Republicans tried to rerun the 2024 playbook. In Texas, they spent a fortune tagging James Talarico as “Talafreako.” But there’s little evidence such attacks landed, with Talarico winning by double digits. The issue’s resonance in 2024 was fueled by the frustration of parents who’d felt bullied, silenced, and gaslit by woke activists and their allies. Now that Woke 1.0 has subsided, so has the backlash.

Education didn’t matter in this election. While Republicans made landmark changes to restrain student lending, created the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, and pressed for big changes on campus, they didn’t talk about any of it much on the campaign trail. And Democrats focused intently on affordability, Iran, and corruption. Education just wasn’t in the picture.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

Education wasn’t a big issue nationally. It played a more significant role in some state races, as with Texas’s new Democratic governor pledging to pare back testing and private school choice. But, politically speaking, education is often most potent for its symbolic valance. George W. Bush famously used K–12 accountability to portray himself as a Republican serious about equal opportunity, while Barack Obama showed he was willing to challenge the unions in the name of reform. Given dismal academic achievement, the rise of AI, and high levels of youth discontent, there’s much ed fodder that presidential contenders could leverage in the run-up to 2028. If they do, education may play a much larger role in two years’ time.

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”