State policymakers remain at the forefront in shaping and maintaining child care systems that allow families to access high quality and affordable care and ensuring child care programs are supported. This blog offers a first look at the state legislative landscape in 2026, including the how states are preparing for challenges in upcoming budget years and how Governors are proposing to expand, sustain, or contract child care and early learning funding in their proposed budgets.

Despite 2025 being an ‘off’ year election child care was very much ‘on’ the ballot.

A year after federal relief funding for child care ended, many states are confronting the troubling—yet familiar—signs of instability in their child care systems. The infusion of federal aid, paired with smart state policy, had helped programs reopen or stay open, and had even grown the supply of care in some states during and following the pandemic. Between 2023 and 2024, Child Care Aware of America found that the number of licensed centers grew by 1.6% and family child care homes by 4.8%. But with relief funds gone, flat funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant in FY 2025, and flat or modestly increased federal funding for FY 2026, many states are grappling with what to do next. 

While there wasn’t a major national election in 2023, voters still had the opportunity to weigh in on various state and local offices, as well as ballot measures and propositions regarding child care this year. Even off-year elections provide a valuable opportunity for child care advocates to make their voices heard for candidates and policies that will support the needs of young children and their families.