Glenn Youngkin Says Democratic Governors Are “Failing” Kids. Twenty States Haven’t Opted In to Find Out.
- $1,700 the maximum annual federal tax credit an individual donor can claim for gifts to Scholarship Granting Organizations under the Education Freedom Tax Credit — U.S. Dept. of Education & Treasury joint fact sheet
- ~30 States have formally opted in as of August 2026; roughly 19-20, almost all Democrat-led, have not, with the program launching January 1, 2027 — Ballotpedia state-participation tracker
- $23,000,000,000 in scholarship donations America First Policy Institute projects the holdout states will forgo between 2027 and 2029 — America First Policy Institute
- 3 Democratic governors — Josh Stein (D-NC), Andy Beshear (D-KY), Laura Kelly (D-KS) — vetoed opt-in bills only to have their own legislatures override them — Kentucky Lantern; Ballotpedia
- $500,000,000 in donations Pennsylvania risks losing if Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) misses the opt-in deadline, per one estimate — Commonwealth Foundation, May 8, 2026
On August 15, 2026, former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) published an opinion piece in the New York Post accusing Democratic governors of “failing America’s students” by refusing to opt their states into the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit — a program created by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that lets individual donors claim up to $1,700 a year in federal tax credits for gifts funding private-school scholarships, tutoring, and services for children with disabilities.
The op-ed amplified a fight Youngkin had already picked ten days earlier. On August 5, he launched a nonprofit called Empowering America’s Parents, backed by a multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed squarely at four Democrat-led states: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Two of the four — Michigan and Pennsylvania — genuinely hadn’t decided; the other two had already formally declined, and EAP is pressuring them to reverse course.
The credit takes effect January 1, 2027, and an estimated 52 million students nationwide are eligible in families earning up to 300% of their area’s median income — but only if their state opts in. Roughly 30 states have. Almost all of the roughly 19-20 that haven’t are run by Democratic governors, and three more only opted in after their governors tried to block it and got overridden.
Six Democratic governors have declined to opt their states in outright, with no legislative override in sight. Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) vetoed Wisconsin’s participation bill on March 30, 2026, arguing the federal program itself was built without guardrails:
“This nationwide voucher program has no student achievement metrics, no school accountability measures, no minimum or maximum scholarship size, no certain end date, and no cap on how much the federal government can spend.”
Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI), veto statement, March 30, 2026
Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) struck a similar note when she vetoed Arizona’s SB 1142 on April 14, 2026, pointing to the state’s own troubled experience with school-voucher oversight:
“We have seen what happens when these types of programs lack accountability, transparency, and oversight. I hope the administration ensures any federal school choice program will have the much-needed guardrails Arizona's ESA program lacks.”
Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ), veto statement, April 14, 2026
Four more Democratic governors declined without a formal veto fight: Gov. Tina Kotek (D-OR), Gov. Josh Green (D-HI), Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM), who cited accountability concerns when she declined on January 27, 2026, and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who declined around March 24, 2026. In each case, the governor’s decision is the final word for now — no override effort has succeeded in any of the six states.
Three other Democratic governors tried to block their states from participating and lost the fight in their own legislatures. Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) vetoed Kentucky’s opt-in bill, and the Republican supermajority in Frankfort overrode him on March 17, 2026. Gov. Laura Kelly (D-KS) vetoed Kansas’s SB 361; lawmakers overrode that veto on April 9, 2026. And Gov. Josh Stein (D-NC) vetoed North Carolina’s version, only to see the General Assembly override him on June 3, 2026.
The three overrides matter for the accountability record: in Kentucky, Kansas, and North Carolina, it was the elected legislature — not the governor — that decided residents should have access to the credit. All three governors are on record trying to stop it.
Youngkin’s Empowering America’s Parents launched with a direct statement from its founder framing the choice for the remaining holdouts:
“Bottom line, every Governor in America should opt-in to the Education Freedom Tax Credit. If they blow this opportunity, they'll be leaving kids behind in their state while children in other states get the benefit.”
Glenn Youngkin (R), former Virginia governor, EAP launch statement, Aug. 5, 2026
Youngkin described the group’s purpose in blunter terms elsewhere in the same launch:
“Empowering America's Parents will recognize the strong leaders who embraced this program and aggressively call out far-left governors who won't stand with parents and are instead playing politics. These tax credits unlock school choice on a virtually universal basis, let's stand with families, and stand against politics.”
Glenn Youngkin (R), EAP launch statement, Aug. 5, 2026
The group’s launch ad puts the same argument in a narrator’s voice, aimed at the four target states: “Nothing is more important than our kids, so who’d be against scholarships for tuition, tutoring, services for kids with disabilities, all paid for by a federal tax credit with no state dollars? Not hardworking parents — but far-left governors won’t play ball.” It’s worth noting precisely where the “failing” label itself originated: not from an independent think-tank report card, but from a White House school-choice tracking page published January 28, 2026 that labeled non-participating Democratic governors “failures” — an administration advocacy framing that Youngkin’s op-ed and nonprofit later amplified, not a graded academic ranking.
Two of Empowering America’s Parents’ four target states remain formally undecided rather than opposed — which is exactly why Youngkin picked them. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) has not announced a decision; Michigan’s Democrat-controlled state Board of Education voted 6-2 urging her not to opt in, putting her at odds with her own party’s education board no matter which way she moves. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) is also undecided, and the exposure is real: the Commonwealth Foundation estimates Pennsylvania risks losing more than $500,000,000 in scholarship donations if the state misses the January 1, 2027 opt-in deadline. The other two EAP targets, Arizona and Wisconsin, have already formally declined — Gov. Hobbs’s April veto and Gov. Evers’s March veto, both detailed above — making EAP’s pressure campaign there aimed at reversing a decision already made, not winning an undecided one.
California was never one of EAP’s four named targets, but it has drawn public pressure of its own: Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has stayed silent on the program, a point Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA) made directly on X. America First Policy Institute projects the roughly 19-20 non-participating states combined stand to forgo about $23,000,000,000 in scholarship donations between 2027 and 2029, and roughly 4.1 million scholarship opportunities nationally.
30 states have now opted in to expand educational opportunity through the Education Freedom Tax Credit. But not CA.
The opt-in fight is not a clean party-line story, and naming the exceptions matters. Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) was the first Democratic governor to opt in, doing so around the turn of the year and telling reporters it “would be crazy not to.” Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) became the second Democrat to opt in, around May 2026. And in Virginia itself, Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) — Youngkin’s own successor, sworn in this January — inherited Virginia’s opt-in status and kept it rather than reversing course.
That leaves the remaining holdouts — six outright decliners, three overridden by their own legislatures, and the undecided states Youngkin’s ad campaign is targeting — as a minority within their own party, not a unified Democratic position. Polis, Hochul, and Spanberger show opting in was available to any Democratic governor who wanted it; most of the states still on the sidelines chose not to.
The Education Freedom Tax Credit lets donors claim up to $1,700 a year for private-school scholarship gifts, but only in states that opt in before the January 1, 2027 launch. Roughly 30 states have; the roughly 19-20 that haven’t are almost all Democrat-led. Six governors — Evers, Hobbs, Kotek, Green, Lujan Grisham, and Walz — declined outright. Three more — Stein, Beshear, and Kelly — vetoed opt-in bills only to be overridden by their own legislatures. Whitmer, Shapiro, and Newsom remain undecided, with Pennsylvania alone risking an estimated $500,000,000 in forgone donations. Glenn Youngkin (R), Virginia’s former governor, is now running a multimillion-dollar campaign through his nonprofit Empowering America’s Parents to pressure the holdouts — while three Democrats, Polis, Hochul, and Spanberger, already opted their states in.
