Media Contact: Domenica Ghanem, [email protected]

National Child Care Movement Celebrates Projected New Mexico Win, Calls for Federal Funding

The constitutional amendment win signals voters want child care solutions

Today, November 8, 2022, New Mexico voters are projected to enshrine a guaranteed funding stream for early childhood education into their state constitution and re-elect childcare champion Gov. Lujan Grisham. The amendment will allocate a 1.25% education funding increase, of which 60% will go to early childhood education, from the New Mexico Land Grant Permanent Fund. 

Together, by Election Day, Community Change Action and OLÉ made 187,312 voter contact attempts in New Mexico with 30,853 door knocks, 83,491 phone calls, and 70,972 texts, to turn out low-propensity, high-potential voters, including 93,220 attempts of Latino, Native and new voters. OLÉ was part of a statewide coalition, Yes for Kids Campaign, which knocked over 500k doors.

New Mexico isn’t the only place where voters chose child care. After incredible organizing by our partner Stand Up for Ohio who set out to mobilize care voters this election, knocked on more than 45k doors and made more than 51k relational voter contacts, Democrat Greg Landsman, who ran on a platform of supporting children and families, is slated to oust incumbent Steve Chabot. Just one of the families in Stand Up for Ohio’s relational voter turnout program recruited over 1,000 volunteers who reached out to 20k close friends and family.

Community Change Action co-presidents Lorella Praeli and Dorian Warren said:

“The voters have spoken and they want child care solutions. New Mexico is proof that when we do deep listening in communities, organize for transformative change, and fight for the policies that help bring stability to their everyday lives, voters will show up at the polls. Every child deserves the foundation for a bright future, no matter what they look like or how much money their family has. Today’s win makes New Mexico a model for the rest of the country. We’ll continue to fight for federal funding to ensure that every state has the resources it needs to fund a 21st century childcare system built on racial and gender justice, that secures affordable care for families and pays providers living wages. Democrats should take note – deep organizing in Latino communities and taking on bold economic ideas that bring safety and security to families will always beat out extremist right-wing campaigns that thrive off of anxiety, disinformation and fear.”

Andrea Serrano, Executive Director of OLÉ, the organization that has led the fight for this constitutional amendment in New Mexico for over a decade, said:

“The passage of Constitutional Amendment 1 is a victory for people-powered democracy, and a triumph for New Mexico’s Early Childhood Education and Care communities. New Mexicans, who value family, education and hard work, have bucked the trends of this election- and in so doing have instructed our elected officials to honor a bold idea now enshrined in our Constitution that education begins at birth. For New Mexicans, the burden has finally been lifted away from working parents struggling to pay for the high cost of childcare, from the woefully underpaid early education workforce struggling to stay in the field they love and from the children who all deserve the same opportunity to thrive. While we might have become the first state to do this, we will fight like hell with our friends in other states to make sure we are not the last.

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