NH congressional candidates agree on childcare issues, differ on solutions

Lowering costs is taking center stage ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, and New Hampshire’s congressional candidates all discussed how childcare policy fits into their affordability policy at a forum last week. 

The candidate forum, hosted by Early Learning New Hampshire and Save the Children Action Network NH, gave Granite State’s congressional and gubernatorial candidates a chance to speak directly to childcare providers about childcare policy. All major party candidates for the Senate and 1st and 2nd Congressional District races responded live or via pre-recorded video to questions submitted ahead of the event. Over 90 childcare providers were in attendance. 

Childcare and early education are governed at the state level in New Hampshire. However, the state relies mostly on federal dollars for childcare initiatives like the childcare scholarship program, Head Start, quality improvement metrics and more. 

According to a September report from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, between 2020 and the end of the current state fiscal year in June 2027, reliance on federal dollars for funding the NH Child Care Scholarship Program will have increased by 62%, while state funding for the program has decreased by 19%.

Childcare receives bipartisan support in the New Hampshire Legislature due to its impact on working families and employers, while at the federal level, congressional Democrats tend to stand alone when pushing for more funding. But with affordability front of mind as people head to the polls, all major party candidates have taken a position in favor of childcare.

2nd Congressional District: Goodlander’s record versus Williams’ aspirations

In New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, voters will experience repeat choices between Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander and Republican nominee Lily Tang Williams. Both were their parties’ candidates on the ballot in 2024. 

Goodlander was first elected to represent New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District in 2024. She spent her time speaking live at the forum reflecting on her record from her first term, including securing funding for early education programs at community colleges and high schools, childcare centers in the North Country, and for military families in her position on the House Armed Services Committee. 

“It’s been a top priority for me to do everything in my power as your congresswoman to make childcare early education affordable, and a profession that the best among us want to enter into in New Hampshire,” Goodlander said during the forum. 

Goodlander co-sponsored the Child Care for Working Families Act, which would cap family costs for childcare at 7% of their income, the percentage the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers an affordable amount to spend on childcare. She also supported and helped to pass the Supporting Early-Childhood Educators’ Deduction (SEED) Act, which expands the federal above-the-line educator expense tax deduction to include pre-kindergarten and early childhood educators.  

“I’d heard from so many childcare professionals, early childhood educators, about out-of-pocket costs for actually doing the job,” she said. “Our teachers are reimbursed for expenses that are just part of doing the job and educating. And we were able to get that across the finish line on a bipartisan basis this year.” 

In an interview with the Bulletin, Goodlander said she hears from families about rising childcare costs “literally every day.” 

“It’s a full blown crisis right now. Families are having to pay as much as a mortgage to afford childcare, as much as college tuition,” she said. “In rural areas, the real crisis is if they could pay.” 

Goodlander also said she was in favor of cutting government red tape around childcare and harnessing unusual funding avenues, like the National Defense Authorization Act, to get dollars out to providers. 

“When you look at where [New Hampshire] falls at the national level in terms of early childhood education in America, we’re number one in many respects, but we’re certainly not one when it comes to early childhood education,” Goodlander said. “This is the opportunity here.” 

Williams, an entrepreneur and educator, has run on a platform of reducing federal spending and regulations, affordability and limited government. 

She spoke live at the forum about her experiences trying to find childcare as a mother. She told providers that if elected, she wants to work to drive down inflation so providers don’t have to pass down operational costs to parents. 

“[Inflation] is going to add all the costs for providers, and providers have to exist and have to make a business make sense, so they pass to the parents who bear the cost. So then childcare becomes unaffordable,” Williams said. 

Williams told providers she would help bring down costs by tackling high energy costs and burdensome federal regulation. She said federal regulations on childcare “add another layer of red tape regulation” on top of state childcare rules. 

“If the state inspect, why do you need the federal government to inspect again?” Williams said. 

New Hampshire lawmakers, in partnership with the Child Care Advisory Committee in 2025, reformed the state’s childcare laws to reduce redundancies, cutting the law from over 200 pages to less than 90. 

Additionally, Williams said she was in favor of increasing the incentives for potential teachers to enter the workforce. She proposed finding a way to urge employers to participate in or expand on tax incentives for the industry. 

The Bulletin reached out to representatives of Williams’ campaign to speak further about childcare policy. The campaign did not meet interview scheduling deadlines.

Both candidates agree that increasing rural and home-based childcare in their district is important to working families. The 2nd Congressional District consists of Nashua, Concord and most of the North Country, which has sparse childcare offerings. 

Senate candidates talk regulation and funding 

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In the race to replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Congressman Chris Pappas and former Sen. John E. Sununu expressed two differing approaches to how they would tackle childcare policy in the Senate. 

Pappas, who currently represents New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, has made expanding affordable access to childcare a part of his campaign, calling it a “critical issue” in April.

In a pre-recorded video of Pappas that played during the forum, he talked about his record supporting childcare issues while serving in the House, including supporting a cap on out-of-pocket childcare at 7% of a family’s median income, reinstating the expanded child tax credit to help families offset household expenses, and workplace childcare for police officers and military officers.

Like other New Hampshire congressional Democrats, he has also pushed for legislation to expand rural childcare and increase childcare programs that offer care for off-shift workers. 

“This is such an important issue, and I’ve been fighting to get resources to New Hampshire childcare providers so they can open more slots, improve wages, and meet the needs of families,” Pappas said. 

Sununu has spoken little about early education on the campaign trail and has focused on affordability, energy, and government programs like Social Security and Medicare. 

In his live appearance at the Early Learning New Hampshire forum, Sununu said he would be in favor of reducing federal regulations around childcare and supporting the state’s affordability and access efforts through training, audits and the background check application process.

“They’ve taken away the waivers on background checks, so that you can’t work while you’re going through the application process, and that’s unnecessary,” Sununu said. “I think it hurts the number of people that we can have in a setting. And again, it’s just a regulation that makes it a little tougher for people in New Hampshire when they’re doing the right things to deliver the services they need.” 

Some New Hampshire childcare providers have complained about the complexity of the state’s background check process, specifically when programs are changing staff over from school year care to summer care. The New Hampshire Child Care Licensing Unit handles background checks for childcare programs and 24-hour residential programs. There are both state and federal background check rules, and providers may be required to comply with both. 

Sununu also said he supported cutting regulations that govern childcare for military families and create red tape. 

“We can do better, serve you better by getting rid of regulations that aren’t necessarily about New Hampshire, and that’s my focus.” 

The Trump administration has been working on lowering regulations and standards for federal-funded childcare programs like Head Start and the Child Care and Development Fund, the main childcare funding source for New Hampshire. Regulation changes have had varied impacts on the Granite State, but have been generally opposed by childcare teachers and business owners. 

Additionally, Sununu said he would support funding towards workforce development and the state childcare scholarship program, and in the long run, support a “fair and reasonable compensation structure,” making sure an “appropriate level of funding’ would be available and consistent for New Hampshire. 

1st Congressional District candidates both support more federal funding 

New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District holds the majority of the state’s childcare programs, as the district covers Manchester, the Seacoast and parts of the Lakes Region. Both nominees, Republican Anthony DiLorenzo and Democrat Stefany Shaheen, spoke about the importance of having affordable childcare for working families in their district, with their approach to handling it in Congress falling on party lines. 

DiLorenzo, an entrepreneur who owns multiple car dealerships on the Seacoast, attended the forum live. He said there are “many benefits” for both families and businesses to have affordable childcare so that families can work and businesses can have employees. 

“When I personally used childcare, it was shocking how expensive it was, and understandably too, because it’s your kid,” he said. “There’s nothing more important than your kids, so you want to make sure they’re cared for, but you also have to be able to justify being able to go to work, and I think many families struggle with that.” 

DiLorenzo said he supported expanding federal child tax credits, encouraging more private-public partnerships to improve childcare and using federal workforce programs, like the new Workforce Pell Grant, to help increase the childcare workforce. He also said as a congressman, he would encourage businesses to utilize business tax credits at the state level to increase childcare capacity. 

“I look at this funding not as a subsidy but as an investment in American families and in American workers,” he said. 

In a pre-recorded video, Shaheen, former Portsmouth city councilor, biotech consultant, and daughter of retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, talked about her experience working in the early education sector and how she would bring it to Congress. Shaheen co-founded Early Learning New Hampshire in 2003 while her mother was governor. She said she would work to fund more initiatives to increase the number of qualified childcare workers through education. 

“It’s clear that we have to do everything in our power to unleash the potential of our workforce and ensure that young families have access to the care they need when they need it, and that young children have access to high-quality early education before they get to school,” she said. 

Shaheen also said she was in favor of expanding the childcare tax credit, reducing early childhood education costs and workforce entry barriers through free community college, and Medicare for All, so that employers don’t have to pay for healthcare. 

“That’s not acceptable in New Hampshire when you’re working full time and taking care of our youngest, most vulnerable citizens, you should be able to go and get the healthcare you need when you need it.” 

Shaheen has previously said that there would be “no greater champion” for early education if she gets elected to Congress.