Policies Can Still Create New Politics: Contemporary Causal Evidence from New York Preschool Parents

Can citizens' firsthand experiences with government policies shape their political opinions? Research on mass "policy feedback" effects increasingly raises doubts about the capacity of even salient policies to overcome partisan and ideological divisions to shift citizen attitudes. I advance this debate with causal estimates of recent, substantial, and broad-based belief change through personal experience with a child in public preschool. Using a difference-in-differences design with an original opinion panel of New York parents universally eligible for too few free full-day seats, I show that experience with public pre-K creates new political beliefs within months. Parents’ baseline preferences for government-provided childcare over private options doubles after a single semester. This profound shift does not differ between Republicans or conservatives with UPK seats and their more liberal counterparts. Social scientists have shown that universal preschool could transform children's life chances, GDP, and gender parity in economic life; this study suggests profound political effects, too.