If you ask American voters what their top issues are, most will cite tabletop issues like the economy, inflation, crime, health care, and education.
In the 2023 and 2024 Gallup polls, less than 5% of respondents said climate change was the most important issue facing the country. Nevertheless, research I conducted with colleagues suggests that concerns about climate change are a significant influence on voters’ choices. in the past two presidential elections. Opinions on climate change may even have been influential enough to swing the outcome of the 2020 election in President Joe Biden’s favor. This is the conclusion of an analysis of polling data released on January 17, 2024, through the University of Colorado’s Center for Social and Environmental Futures.
What explains these results, and how might climate change affect the 2024 election?
Measuring the impact of climate change on elections
Using 2016 and 2020 survey data from the nonpartisan Voter Research Group, we looked at the presidential candidates chosen by thousands of voters in the past two elections, as well as their demographics and climate. We analyzed the relationship between opinions on 22 different issues such as change.
The survey asked voters to rate the importance of climate change using four options: “not important,” “not very important,” “somewhat important,” and “very important.”
In 2020, 67% of voters rated climate change as “somewhat important” or “very important,” up from 62% in 2016. Among voters who rated climate change important, 77% supported Biden in 2020, up from 69% of supporters. Hillary Clinton in 2016. This suggests that opinions on climate change are increasingly giving Democrats an electoral advantage.
Using two different statistical models, we find that opinions on climate change could have shifted the 2020 national popular vote difference (Democratic vote share minus Republican vote share) by more than 3 percentage points towards Biden. I presumed that there was. Using an Electoral College model, he estimated that a 3% change would be large enough to swing the election outcome in his favor.
These patterns mirror the results of the November 2023 poll. The poll found that more voters trust the Democratic Party’s approach to climate change compared to the Republican Party’s approach to the issue.
What can explain the impact of climate change on voting?
So if most voters (including Democrats) don’t rank climate change as a top priority, how might public opinion on climate change affect the 2020 presidential election?
Although our analysis could not directly answer this question, we have three educated guesses.
First, recent presidential elections have been extremely close. This means that opinions about climate change don’t have to have a huge impact on voting to change the outcome of an election. In 2020, Biden won Georgia by about 10,000 votes (0.2% of the vote) and Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes (0.6% of the vote).
Second, even if climate change is not a top issue for voters, candidates who deny that climate change is real or a problem will alienate some moderate swing voters. there is a possibility. The scientific evidence that climate change is real is so strong that when a candidate denies the basic science of climate change, some moderate voters question whether they should trust that candidate in general. You may think so.
Third, some voters may be beginning to see the connection between climate change and the food issues they consider a higher priority than climate change. For example, there is strong evidence that climate change will impact health, national security, economics, and immigration patterns in the United States and around the world.
Candidate’s position
Biden and former President Donald Trump have very different records on their approaches to climate change and the environment.
President Trump has previously called climate change a “hoax.”
In 2017, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that legally requires countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Biden reversed that decision in 2021.
During his time in office, President Trump rolled back 125 environmental regulations and policies designed to protect the nation’s air, water, land and wildlife, claiming those regulations hurt businesses.
Biden reinstated many of these regulations. He also added several new rules and regulations, including a requirement for companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.
Biden also signed three major pieces of legislation that provide tens of billions of dollars in annual spending to combat climate change. Two of these laws were bipartisan.
Meanwhile, the United States also became the world’s largest oil and gas producer and largest natural gas exporter during Biden’s term.
President Trump’s campaign promises include ending subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles, increasing domestic fossil fuel production, and rolling back environmental regulations. In fact, some of these efforts could face opposition not only from Democrats but also from Republicans in Congress.
Public opinion differs on specific climate policies enacted by Biden.
Nevertheless, doing something about climate change remains far more popular than doing nothing. For example, in a November 2023 Yale University poll, 57% of voters said they would prefer a candidate who supports global warming measures over a candidate who opposes them.
What this means for 2024
Our research shows that climate change became increasingly important to voters between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and the importance that voters give to climate change predicts voting for Democrats. It has been found. If these trends continue, climate change could give Democrats an even stronger electoral advantage in 2024.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Democrats will win the 2024 election. For example, our research shows that climate change gave Democrats an advantage in 2016, but it still estimates that Trump won that election because of other issues. Immigration is currently a top issue for many voters, and recent national polls show Trump currently leading Biden in the 2024 presidential race.
A majority of voters currently like the Democratic Party’s stance on climate change, but this doesn’t always have to be true. For example, Democrats risk losing voters if their policies impose economic costs or are seen as anti-capitalist, racial, or overly pessimistic. Some climate change policies supported by Republicans are popular, such as accelerating renewable energy projects.
Nevertheless, if the election were held today, the combined evidence suggests that most voters would prefer a climate-conscious candidate, and that most climate-conscious voters today would prefer a Democratic Party. It is suggested that there is.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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