Teacher Strikes and the Demobilization of Republican Voters

September 2025

Protests can mobilize both supporters and opponents. Extant research suggests that disruptive protests are particularly likely to mobilize opponents, yet strikes—one of the most disruptive forms of protest—have been largely absent from this literature. We use an original dataset of 716 teacher strikes from 2007-2020 to examine the causal effects of teacher strikes on political participation. Contrary to existing theories of protest mobilization, we find that teacher strikes decrease voter turnout, with a substantially larger effect among Republicans than Democrats. Strikes decrease Republican turnout by 3 percentage points, on average, while they reduce Democratic turnout by 1 percentage point. We further show how the effect varies depending on the parental status and across different types of elections. Additionally, we find that the proximity and duration of strikes also matter, with closer or longer strikes having a more significant demobilizing effect. These effects are driven by decreased support for teacher demands and reduced political efficacy. Our findings reveal that different forms of protest action may produce distinct patterns of political behavior, suggesting the need to expand theories of protest beyond their present focus on inspiring third party mobilization.

Keywords

protest, voting, strikes, teachers

Education level

K-12 Education

Topics

Policy, Politics, and Governance