Climate hawks say midterms prove environment is a top voter issue

Democrats’ performance in the midterm elections has emboldened activists and climate hawks who say that voters were concerned about the environment even amid persistently high U.S. gas and energy costs.Forecasters predicted a “red wave” election due to inflation — largely driven by fuel costs — and President Biden’s unpopularity. But Democrats held on to the Senate, and they appear likely to lose the House majority by a razor-thin margin.

Exit polling indicated that despite high energy prices, and Republican attempts to tie them to Democratic policies, 9 percent of voters ranked climate change as their top issue — the same amount of people who said immigration was a top concern and more than those who answered the same for crime.

Pete Maysmith, senior vice president of campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, said the results stand in sharp contrast to the Republican rout of 2010. 

While those midterms are largely remembered as a referendum on the Affordable Care Act, he noted they were also marked by intense attacks on the 2009 emissions-trading “cap and trade” bill. The measure passed the House but never received a Senate vote, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) famously ran a campaign ad in which he shot a paper copy of it with a rifle. 

Meanwhile, Maysmith said, 2022 saw the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the most ambitious climate bill in U.S. history, and no such backlash developed. 

The difference, he said, is “because taking action on climate we know to be popular now even among Republican voters. It’s a different moment in time … I think Mother Nature deserves some credit for that.” 

Much of the Democratic overperformance has been attributed to a combination of voter distaste for candidates endorsed by former President Trump and backlash over the June Supreme Court decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. 

But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told The Hill he suspects climate issues were also “front of mind” for many of the voters who made the difference. 

“Voters for whom [climate] was their top issue, they broke heavily Democrat,” Whitehouse said, indicating climate change can be a deciding factor “when you’re winning races by 2 and 4 and 6 points.” 

Whitehouse said the lack of voter blowback for the Inflation Reduction Act indicated a sea change on how the mainstream views climate action.

“I think the climate denial island is rapidly shrinking as public awareness among both Democrats and Republicans rises, and they’re really now down to simply trying to blockade legislation,” he said. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said the electorate “absolutely” rewarded climate action in the midterms, noting its particular salience with younger voters, the same demographic likely to be motivated by issues like abortion. 

“I think the youth turnout absolutely reflects that, along with abortion, because we know that these are two major issues where bold action highly motivates youth turnout,” she said. 

The energy industry itself, which has sharply criticized the Biden administration for pinning high gas prices on corporate greed, is more skeptical about the role of climate and energy issues as a motivating factor. 

“This was not a gas prices election. There were more factors at play. I think it was more regional and even local in terms of what was really driving voters to the polls,” an industry source told The Hill. The source described the results as “decentralized” compared to other elections where specific issues came to the fore. 

“I think energy factor and energy costs were certainly a factor, but in a much more sort of localized way and among just a host of other issues,” he added. 

Frank Maisano, senior principal at Bracewell LLP’s policy resolution group, which represents various energy companies, was similarly skeptical. 

“I don’t think people paid attention that much to climate and energy issues, other than what they were seeing in gas prices. And of course, if they had seen that they would have probably voted more for Republicans” simply because gas prices are always blamed on the party in power, he said. Issues like abortion and candidate quality likely “carried the day,” Maisano said. 

“Energy and climate, especially climate, maintained its usual place in these types of elections, which is toward the bottom,” he said. “That does move some voters, but it’s never a primary issue.” 

Maysmith, however, argued that in tight races, Democrats benefited from focusing on energy and climate issues. He cited the case of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), whose incredibly close reelection victory clinched a continuing Democratic majority in the upper chamber. 

“She made the case … that [Republican candidate] Adam Laxalt was really in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Oil is responsible for the pain people are feeling,” he said.

“We’ve seen the climate crisis not just in our neighborhood, but on the nightly news, in a way that we hadn’t nearly as much say 12 years ago,” Maysmith said. “We see the effects of the climate catastrophe bearing down on us, [and] voters support taking action.”