Democrats Disagree (Again). This Time, It’s About School Vouchers.

Democrats are already fighting viciously among themselves over Zohran Mamdani, transgender rights, immigration, Israel and affordability.

Add education to the mix.

The party is debating how to respond to the increasingly muscular Republican push for private-school vouchers — most recently, a provision in President Trump’s budget bill that creates the first national private-school choice program.

States will have the ability to opt in or out, presenting Democratic governors with a difficult decision, and one that competing advocacy groups are trying to influence.

Democrats for Education Reform, a group closely affiliated with veterans of the Obama administration, has become a leading voice urging the party to cross what has long been a red line, and embrace some forms of private-school choice — including the Trump program.

D.F.E.R. has prominent allies, including Arne Duncan, Mr. Obama’s former secretary of education, who is working for the group as a consultant. But its new stance in favor of vouchers is provocative within the party — so much so that two former leaders of the organization have quit and are creating a rival group that will oppose vouchers, while supporting other forms of school choice.

Mr. Trump’s private-school choice program is funded by a federal tax credit, and will offer families of most income levels scholarships that can be used for private-school tuition, tutoring or other education expenses.

The group’s chief executive, Jorge Elorza, a former mayor of Providence, R.I., has argued that vouchers are popular with many of the working-class Black and Latino voters who tilted toward Mr. Trump in the 2024 presidential election, and whom Democrats are desperate to win back.

This past weekend, Mr. Elorza traveled to a Democratic Governors Association meeting in Madison, Wis., to make his case. He has been pointing to a provision in Mr. Trump’s budget bill that will potentially allow the voucher dollars to be spent on not only private school tuition, but also tutoring or exam fees for students enrolled in traditional public schools.

He called opting into the program “a no-brainer.”

“This is literally free money,” he said, “that is broadly supported by the majority of voters who have steadily drifted away from the party. It just makes sense.”

It could be difficult to convince Democratic governors. Many are closely allied to teachers’ unions, which have resisted vouchers for decades. The unions argue that vouchers leech students and dollars from public education.

“Vouchers are a vehicle to abandon public education,” said Randi Weingarten, the influential president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union.

In line with the unions, many Democratic politicians have focused their arguments on protecting public school funding. They are also intent on fighting Mr. Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and end racial equity efforts.

In a sign of just how fractured Democrats are, a third camp is emerging, situated somewhere between D.F.E.R. and the unions.

The groups will also support other ways for parents to exercise choice, such as making it easier for students to attend public schools outside of their residential zones, and they will push for all schools to be held accountable for student learning outcomes. The political action committee, the Center for Strong Public Schools Action Fund, will support candidates who align with those stances, especially in the South.

Alisha Thomas Searcy, one of the founders, previously served as D.F.E.R.’s regional president for the South, and is a former Georgia Democratic state legislator and charter school executive. Her partner in the new venture, Garry Jones, previously served as D.F.E.R.’s political director in Texas.

Ms. Searcy and Mr. Jones split with the group after experiencing legislative battles over private-school choice in Georgia and Texas, which are among 18 Republican-leaning states that now offer education savings accounts.

These accounts are a type of flexible private-school voucher that allows parents to spend taxpayer dollars on private education, for-profit virtual learning, tutoring and home-schooling.

Ms. Searcy declined to name the funders of the new political action group and think tank.

She said they will offer “a bold, clear vision as Democrats, to show that we are the party that protects public education from those privatization and other attacks, and demands that it work for every student.”

Democrats who do support private-school choice — including those in the D.F.E.R. coalition — are looking expectantly toward some of the younger moderate governors in the party, several of whom are being discussed as potential presidential candidates in 2028.

Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland is one of them. In a statement, a spokesman said the governor was still evaluating the new federal voucher program.

A spokesman for Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who has supported school choice in the past, said his administration was also reviewing the program, and pointed out that it does not go into effect until 2027.