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Environmental Polling Roundup – April 18, 2025

David Gold David Gold

Headlines

Gallup – Water pollution remains Americans’ top environmental concern; record-high numbers of Americans see climate change as a “serious threat” to them personally and say that its effects are already happening [Article]

Gallup – Most Americans say that the country is doing too little to protect the environment, though the partisan divide is larger than ever [Article]

Trust for Public Land – Americans, including Trump voters, widely oppose the sell-off or closure of public lands [Release, Memo]

Key Takeaways

Partisan divides on environmental issues are accelerating again with Trump in office. Gallup finds that a record-high percentage of Democrats but a record-low percentage of Republicans say that the government is doing too little to protect the environment. Additionally, Democrats are less likely than ever before in Gallup’s tracking to say that the quality of the government is getting better and Republicans are actually more likely than ever before to say that environmental quality is improving.

Trump’s second term is the clear driver behind these widening partisan divisions. While Democrats and Republicans have been drifting further apart in their attitudes about environmental issues for 20+ years, this trend clearly intensified during Trump’s first term and slowed somewhat during Biden’s presidency. Now, with Trump in office for the second time, political divisions on the environment and other issues are again reaching historic proportions.

One important facet of these partisan shifts is that independents are hewing much closer to Democrats’ environmental attitudes than Republicans’. Across metrics, from their beliefs about climate change to their desire for stronger environmental protection from the government, independents are shifting closer to Democrats and leaving Republican partisans more isolated on these issues.

Clean water and public lands continue to generate more bipartisan agreement than other environmental issues. Despite the deepening partisan divides across environmental issues–and particularly over climate change–there remain some key points of agreement across party lines. 

Public lands have long been a bipartisan priority, and the Trust for Public Land finds that Trump voters, like the rest of the country, oppose efforts to sell off public lands, close them, or lay off the staff that protect them. Additionally, Gallup finds that drinking water pollution remains Americans’ top environmental worry in large part because Democrats, independents, and Republicans all express strong concerns about it.

Good Data Points to Highlight

Full Roundup

Gallup – Water pollution remains Americans’ top environmental concern; record-high numbers of Americans see climate change as a “serious threat” to them personally and say that its effects are already happening [Article]

Water pollution remains Americans’ top environmental concern. As is consistently the case in environmental polling, Gallup finds that Americans have deeper concerns about water pollution than any other environmental threat. Most Americans worry a “great deal” about pollution of drinking water (54%) and around half (51%) also worry “a great deal” about pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. 

These threats to clean water elicit greater concern than any other environmental issue that Gallup asked about:

Concerns about drinking water pollution span the political spectrum. Majorities of Democrats and independents say that they worry “a great deal” about drinking water pollution and it is also the most concerning environmental threat to Republicans, 44% of whom say that they worry “a great deal” about it.

Climate change continues to be more politically polarizing than other environmental issues. Of the seven environmental problems that Gallup asked about, climate change ranks as the single most concerning to Democrats (70% worry “a great deal”) and the single least concerning to Republicans (8% worry “a great deal”).

Despite the polarization around it, more Americans than ever see climate change as a “serious threat” to them personally and believe that it’s already happening. Nearly half of Americans (48%) now say that they expect global warming to pose a “serious threat” to them or their way of life, which is a record high in Gallup’s tracking. This figure has been increasing steadily over time, with a double-digit increase in the last 10 years (from 37% in 2015).

Additionally, more Americans than ever before in Gallup’s tracking say that the effects of global warming have already begun (63%). 

Independents lean much more toward Democrats’ way of thinking about global warming than Republicans’. Nearly four in five Democrats (78%) and around half of independents (52%) say that global warming will pose a serious threat in their lifetime, compared to just 14% of Republicans. Additionally, large majorities of Democrats (91%) and independents (66%) but only around three in ten Republicans (31%) say that the effects of global warming have already begun.

Gallup – Most Americans say that the country is doing too little to protect the environment, though the partisan divide is larger than ever [Article]

A growing majority of Americans say that the country is doing too little on the environment. Nearly three in five Americans (57%) say that the country is doing too little to protect the environment, which is an increase of seven points since last year (50%). Additionally, over the past year, the percentage saying that the country is doing too much to protect the environment has dropped by nearly half (from 19% in 2024 to 11% now). 

Trump’s election is the most obvious catalyst for these shifts in public opinion. Since Gallup started tracking this question in the 1990s, agreement that the country is doing too little to protect the environment has tended to rise during Republican administrations and fall during Democratic administrations. That said, Gallup has always found that far more Americans believe that the country is doing “too little” about the environment than believe that the country is doing “too much”–regardless of which party is in power.

Partisan division over the country’s handling of the environment is wider than ever before. The percentage of Democrats saying that the country is doing “too little” to protect the environment (91%) is higher than ever before in Gallup’s tracking going back to 2001, while the percentage of Republicans saying that the country is doing too little on the environment (22%) is the lowest that it’s ever been in Gallup’s tracking.

While we’ve seen growing partisan divides on a variety of environmental topics over the past two decades, the level of polarization has been particularly extreme with Trump in office. The gap between Democrats and Republicans saying that the country was doing too little to protect the government, while still large, shrank during Biden’s presidency compared to Trump’s first term.

Additionally, Gallup finds that the percentage of Republicans describing the quality of the environment as “excellent” or “good” is higher now (68%) than at any time except for Trump’s first term and the percentage of Democrats describing the quality of the environment as “excellent” or “good” is lower now (18%) than at any time except Trump’s first term. Further, a record-high percentage of Republicans (65%) and a record-low percentage of Democrats (5%) say that the quality of the environment is getting better.

This level of polarization is not unique to environmental issues and is better explained by the general political division that Trump engenders and actively tries to stoke, creating historic levels of partisan disagreement on a wide range of issues.

Trust for Public Land – Americans, including Trump voters, widely oppose the sell-off or closure of public lands [Release, Memo]

Americans, including Trump voters, oppose selling off public lands to the highest bidder. By an overwhelming 61-point margin (10% support / 71% oppose), Americans oppose selling off public lands when the practice is described in plain terms as the “sale of existing national public lands – such as those providing opportunities for hunting, fishing, hiking, and other recreational uses – to the highest private bidder.”

Issues around public lands often have strong bipartisan agreement, as is the case here with 61% of 2024 Trump voters and 85% of 2024 Harris voters opposing the sell-off of public lands to the highest bidder.

Americans also widely reject proposals to close or reduce staff on public lands. Even when they’re described as part of an “effort to reduce federal spending”–a goal that tends to be popular in itself–Americans oppose each of the following measures by wide margins:

Again, opposition to these measures extends to Trump’s voters as 2024 Trump voters oppose closing public lands by a 47-point margin (17% support / 64% oppose) and oppose staff layoffs by a 10-point margin (31% support / 41% oppose)

Americans across the political spectrum agree that public lands should be protected from budget cuts. By a 45-point margin (17% support / 62% oppose), Americans oppose reducing funding to the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other public land management agencies for visitor services, firefighting, maintenance, public safety, and oversight of public lands. 

This proposal to cut funding for agencies that manage public lands is deeply unpopular among both 2024 Harris voters (11% support / 80% oppose) and 2024 Trump voters (26% support / 49% oppose).

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