The 2020 presidential election may have swung to Joe Biden's side thanks to fears surrounding climate change.
A new report from CU Boulder's Center for Environmental Futures (C-SEF) revealed that many voters in the 2016 and 2020 elections were driven to cast their ballots based on climate change concerns. This influence may have won the Democrats the election in 2020.
The researchers say the same concerns could influence votes in the coming 2024 election.
The report concluded that if it wasn't for the climate change issue, the Republicans may have won a 3-percent swing, enough to win the 2020 election.
"We found three things: 1) Climate-conscious voters make up roughly two-thirds of voters. 2) Climate-conscious voters strongly prefer the Democrats, all else equal. 3) These two facts combined imply that climate change opinion provides the Democrats an electoral advantage, and we estimate that, in the 2020 presidential election, this advantage was probably large enough to change the outcome in Joe Biden's favor, all else equal," Matthew Burgess, CIRES fellow and C-SEF director, told Newsweek.
The report revealed that around twice as many votes are concerned about climate change than those who are not, with 57 percent of voters preferring a candidate who supports actions preventing climate change, compared to 16 percent preferring a candidate who opposed these actions, according to a 2023 Yale University survey.
"Voters who stated that climate change was a 'somewhat important' or 'very important' issue to them represented 67 percent of voters, and 77 percent of these voters voted for the Democratic candidate (Joe Biden). Therefore, climate change opinion represents an electoral advantage for the Democrats," the report stated.
Additionally, many Republicans who see climate change as a key issue may have been swung in 2020: around a quarter of Republicans who thought climate change a "very important" issue voted for Biden.
"This is obviously information that politicians and advocates across the political spectrum will want to know, heading into the 2024 election cycle," Burgess said in a statement. "How to reduce political polarization of climate change is one of the questions our research group is most interested in currently, and this provides some insight."
Despite climate change's influence on the election, it is rarely voters' number one issue: less than 5 percent of adults ranked climate change as the most important issue, with the economy, healthcare, education and crime often ranked above it.
The reason climate change is such a strong predictor for the election, despite not being many people's number one concern, could be that climate denial or minimization is a sign that a candidate cannot be trusted.
"One reason might be that most people see the evidence for climate change as so strong that, if a candidate were to deny or minimize that issue, they might trust that candidate less on other issues," Burgess said.
"Another reason might be that voters are beginning to see a connection between climate change and the kitchen table issues they care about more, like the economy, security, and health. But we can't say for sure, and this is a key question for future research."
Climate, therefore, may remain a cornerstone issue in the upcoming election. Recent polling shows that the Democrats hold a 26-point advantage over Republicans on the climate change issue, larger than any other lead on opposing topics between the parties.
However, the effects of this issue in 2024 remain to be seen and may not have the same influence as they did in 2020.
"Obviously, I can't say for sure whether this will be the case in 2024. However, we saw the climate advantage for Democrats get stronger from 2016 to 2020 (both elections with Trump as the GOP nominee), and climate concern has broadly continued to rise. So, my default guess would be that climate change will provide an advantage as large or larger than we found in 2020, unless either Trump changes his stance on the issue or the GOP nominates someone else who has a different stance," Burgess explained.
"Nikki Haley has been open about wanting to address climate change during the campaign, and Ron DeSantis quietly has a track record of concrete steps (e.g. blocking drilling in the Everglades; investing in the conservation corridor, seawalls, and mangrove restoration to reduce storm surge; and his response to Hurricane Ian was widely praised). So, my guess would be that climate-conscious independents and Republicans would find either of those candidates more appealing than Trump (based on his current stance). But again, that is just an educated guess and I can't say for sure."
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Update 1/19/24, 11:57 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Matthew Burgess.
About the writer
Jess Thomson is a Newsweek Science Reporter based in London UK. Her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. ... Read more
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