A growing number of governors across the country are rejecting a recent recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control that public school students be required to get Covid vaccines in order to attend classes.

One thing those governors have in common is that they are all Republicans. Democratic governors have been largely silent on the topic, and GOP challengers to some of those incumbents are quickly making it an issue in next month’s election.

Within hours of the CDC decision, Republican governors in Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, and Oklahoma reassured families that the jabs would not be obligatory in their states. Some of those states already have laws on the books forbidding the inclusion of the Covid vaccines on the list of mandatory vaccines.

Virtually every Republican governor in the nation has followed suit in the days since.

“Regardless of what the CDC in Washington says, nothing changes in Oklahoma and kids are not required to get a COVID vaccine to attend school,” Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, who signed a law last year stating as much, said. “It’s up to parents to decide how to protect their child from viruses and as long as I am governor, we will never force kids to get a COVID vaccine to go to school.”

“COVID-19 mandates should be in our rear view mirror,” Governor Youngkin of Virginia tweeted on the day of the decision. “The decision to vaccinate a child against COVID-19 is for Virginia parents to make about what’s best for them and their family. We will not adhere to these mandates.”

Last week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 15-0 to recommend that states include the Covid vaccines on their 2023 childhood and adult immunization schedules. The agency stressed that the advisory was only a recommendation, and that the decision whether to require the vaccines of incoming public school students rests solely with state and local authorities.

The United States is an outlier among Western nations in authorizing mRNA vaccines such as those produced by Moderna and Pfizer to combat Covid for children under the age of 5. The European Union says the vaccines are not advisable for children under the age of 12, and Denmark stopped recommending them for all persons under the age of 18.

The American public appears to favor the European view over that of the CDC. Even though the Covid vaccines were approved in June for children between six months and 4 years old, only 3.5 percent of that demographic is now vaccinated. Only about a third of children ages 4 to 11 are vaccinated.

The CDC’s recommendation put vulnerable Democrats in a tight spot. The advice is unambiguous, and a candidate asked about a mandate has only two possible responses — yes or no. Deferring to the “authorities” or the “science” is not possible anymore. The authorities have spoken.

New York’s incumbent Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, who is locked in a close race with Republican Lee Zeldin, tried to dodge the issue by saying only that she takes the recommendation “seriously” after her opponent stated unequivocally that he would oppose a mandate.

“Kathy Hochul needs to let the public immediately know exactly where she stands on this issue,” his campaign said.

Ms. Hochul, however, demurred. “While there is a legislative process to add any vaccination to the state’s required immunization for school children, we will closely review any recommendation handed down by the advisory committee,” the governor’s spokesman, Justin Mason, said in a statement.

Likewise, in Illinois, Governor Pritzker has been silent on the issue despite statements in the past that his state would follow CDC guidelines. His Republican challenger, Darren Bailey, immediately labeled him the “mandate candidate” who will “force it on your kids because he thinks the government knows better than parents.”

In one of the nation’s most closely watched governor’s races, the three-way contest in Oregon, Republican Christine Drazen also pledged to make the vaccines available to everyone who wants one but told the Washington Examiner that “to mandate it as a condition of entering and remaining in our public school system is completely wrong.”

Ms. Drazen currently leads the polling in Oregon by a narrow margin and, if elected, would be the first Republican governor in that state in 40 years. One of her opponents, Democrat Tina Kotek, also has been silent on the issue since the CDC’s recommendation. In an earlier statement to Oregon Public Broadcasting, however, she said she was opposed to a statewide mandate for public school students. 

“As Governor, I will follow the science and listen to the experts when making decisions about public health,” she wrote in an Oregon Public Broadcasting questionnaire. “At this time I do not believe the state should update vaccination requirements for schools.”

The other candidate in the race, independent Betsy Johnson, was more strident in her opposition to mandates in the same survey. “I don’t believe the government has the right to tell us what we can and cannot do with our bodies, or with our kids,” Ms. Johnson said. “Making Covid-19 vaccination a requirement for public school attendance is unnecessary nanny-state overreach.”