Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andy Beshear’s apparent victory in Kentucky might not seem to have much in common with the wins Chicago teachers secured after their October strike. But both events bear the imprint of massive teacher uprisings over the past several years and show how they are affecting the political landscape in deep – and surprising – ways.

The strikes have stretched through deep red states like West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky but also cities in blue California and purple Colorado. My research documents how the teacher movement is inspiring new action in and out of the workplace – with real economic and political impacts.

In Kentucky, there’s clear evidence that the public is firmly behind school teachers. In a survey of Kentuckians fielded at the start of 2019, I found that over two-thirds of respondents said that they supported the teacher protests. An overwhelming majority of Kentuckians even said they would support future teacher strikes and walkouts to boost school spending and resources.

The Kentucky strikes also helped teachers to build their organizing strength. This left them well-positioned to mobilize for the gubernatorial election. Bluegrass state teachers volunteered in scores for the Beshear campaign and organized get-out-the-vote efforts on the same Facebook page that had become a hub for action in the walkouts. A recent survey conducted by Data for Progress just before the Kentucky election confirms the reach mobilized teachers had in the race. Over four in 10 likely voters said that they had talked with, or heard from, a public school teacher about the gubernatorial elections.

This isn’t just happening with teachers in Kentucky. Teacher actions across the country are broadening out from organizing around education policy to organizing for political races.

Teacher actions across the country are broadening out from organizing around education policy to organizing for political races

With a team of researchers from Columbia University, I have been studying the six original “Red4Ed” states with teacher walkouts or strikes: Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma and West Virginia. I collected state and local newspaper coverage of teachers in those states from 2017 to present day, comparing differences in how teachers were described before and after the strikes. I also looked at newspapers in similar states where teachers did not go on strike. I found a regular pattern: teachers in striking states were moving from the streets to the ballot box, focusing on races at all levels of government, from state legislatures to Congress.

And this wave of teacher strikes is not just inspiring more political action. It is also energizing further labor interest and action outside of schools. In a new study, my co-authors and I surveyed a representative sample of parents in early 2019 across the six teacher walkout states. We were interested in knowing whether parents who were the most exposed to the strikes, protests and walkouts changed how they thought about teachers and the labor movement.

You might think that facing massive disruption to their children’s education, parents would turn against the teachers. But we found precisely the opposite.

Comparing parents whose children’s ages placed them just in or out of school – and so were either exposed or not to the walkouts – we found that parents with greater firsthand experience with the protests were much more supportive of the teachers and their demands than were parents not exposed to the strikes.

Even more surprising: parents who came into contact with walkouts and strikes were more interested in taking labor action, like strikes, at their own jobs. Seeing strikes and walkouts by their children’s teachers inspired these parents. Another piece of evidence: Google searches for “how to join a union” surged during the Red4Ed strikes in 2018.

Digging deeper, we found that the strikes were the most motivating for parents who previously had little positive experience with the labor movement: conservatives, Republicans and individuals without friends or family in unions.

In an era when only one out of 10 workers belongs to a union, it is easy to rely on stereotypes about the labor movement from the media or politicians. But when workers, even conservative workers, see what successful labor action can do, the prospects of labor organizing seem much more appealing.

My research suggests that unions should not shy away from opportunities to educate the public on what the labor movement can offer through collective action. It also means that granting workers full strike rights ought to be an essential part of any effort to reform state and federal labor law. Without those legal rights workers lack the ability to fully exercise their labor – and political – voice.

More immediately, however, the spread of teacher strikes across the country gives us every reason to think that these protests will continue to reverberate in the weeks and months to come.

Unions have long been described as “schools of democracy”, endowing their members with skills they can bring into politics. Teachers have begun to put what they learned in their schools to work in elections. If they keep it up, imagine what teachers will do in November 2020 and beyond.

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is assistant professor of public affairs at Columbia University, a member of the Scholars Strategy Network, and the author of the book State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States – and the Nation (Oxford University Press, 2019)