The Democratic Party has reduced emphasis on climate change in recent months, a shift attributed to efforts to address the party’s 2024 election loss by focusing more on cost-of-living concerns. However, new research from the 2035 Initiative at UC Santa Barbara challenges the assumption that discussing climate change weakens electoral prospects.
The initiative’s polling, conducted this summer with approximately 3,500 participants representing the broader U.S. electorate, found that adding climate change to campaign messaging had neutral to positive effects on Democratic candidate support. When voters were asked to choose between randomly assigned candidate priorities, those emphasizing climate change received a 4.5 percentage point boost overall. Approximately two-thirds of respondents supported government investment in solar and wind energy regardless of how the policy goal was framed, and about 60 percent of Republicans surveyed backed such programs even when climate change was mentioned explicitly.
The research has created a point of disagreement among Democratic strategists and climate advocates. Some organizations previously argued that Democrats focused too heavily on climate, citing successful campaigns by Democratic candidates who emphasized energy affordability and domestic oil production rather than climate action. Others contend that public silence on the issue erodes long-term political will for climate policymaking and point to pre-2020 election climate debate as instrumental in generating support for subsequent legislation.
All participants acknowledged that voters rank climate change 12th among 15 priorities, well behind the cost of living and health care. The debate centers on strategy: whether quiet policymaking tucked into larger bills achieves climate goals more effectively than explicit public discourse, or whether sustained attention and political conversation are necessary to pass meaningful legislation. Proponents of continued climate messaging argue that without public debate, politicians lack the motivation to prioritize climate action once in office, citing the Inflation Reduction Act as an example of legislation enabled by prior public discussion.
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