Environmental Polling Roundup – December 12, 2025
Headlines
Third Way – Voters are most likely to name solar as the most affordable energy source but choose wind as the most expensive [Website, Memo]
[AZ] American Lung Association – Arizona voters across party lines want more clean energy in the state and believe that expanding it would save Arizona families money [Release, Memo, Topline]
Key Takeaways
Voters are equating clean energy expansion with lower utility bills. Third Way finds that around three-quarters of voters nationwide believe that building more clean energy in the U.S. would lower energy costs. And the American Lung Association similarly finds that three-quarters of Arizona voters agree that using more clean energy in the state would save Arizona families money.
Americans tend to see energy costs as a supply-and-demand issue, and believe that increasing domestic energy production in particular is an effective path to lower utility bills. This provides a clear opportunity for advocates to mobilize voters against the Trump administration’s anti-clean energy policies.
In post-election polling in New Jersey and Virginia by Upswing Research & Strategy, most voters in each state said that they had heard about the Trump administration’s plans to cancel new solar and wind energy and voters opposed these plans by wide margins after hearing about them. It’s safe to assume that awareness of these policies is lower in the rest of the country, as energy costs received a great deal of focus in these states’ gubernatorial campaigns. Raising awareness nationwide is a strategic imperative for advocates in 2026.
The affordability of solar energy in particular is starting to break through. When asking voters to identify the most affordable source of energy today, Third Way finds that voters are more likely to choose solar than any other energy source. Data for Progress found similar results in a poll earlier this year.
However, while solar is outperforming other energy sources on this question in relative terms, in absolute terms only 26%-28% of voters are correctly identifying solar as the most affordable energy source. This leaves significant room to educate the public about the affordability of clean energy. As advocates make the case against the Trump administration’s clean energy bans, it’s critical to communicate that clean energy like wind and solar is now cheaper than energy from fossil fuels like coal and gas.
Good Data Points to Highlight
[Energy Prices] 73% of voters believe that the U.S. building more clean energy would lower energy costs [Third Way]
[Energy Prices] Voters are more likely to choose solar than any other energy source when asked to pick the most affordable type of energy [Third Way]
[AZ] 76% of Arizona voters agree that Arizona should implement policies that expand clean energy like wind and solar [American Lung Association]
[AZ] 75% of Arizona voters agree that using more clean energy like wind and solar would save Arizona families money [American Lung Association]
[AZ] 69% of Arizona voters agree that climate change is already having a serious impact on their part of the country [American Lung Association]
[AZ] 68% of Arizona voters agree that Arizona policymakers need to do more to combat climate change [American Lung Association]
Full Roundup
Third Way – Voters are most likely to name solar as the most affordable energy source but choose wind as the most expensive [Website, Memo]
Americans continue to have positive feelings about clean energy, but also tend to like natural gas. Pulling from Third Way’s memo on their poll results:
“Most respondents have a favorable view of clean energy, including wind and solar (68%), as well as natural gas (73% favorable). Favorability of clean energy climbs to 76% when nuclear is included alongside wind and solar…
Partisanship does alter support for individual energy technologies, but not as much as one might think—59% of Democrats are favorable to natural gas, and 54% of Republicans are favorable to clean energy, including nuclear, wind, and solar.”
These findings are consistent with what we’ve seen in other national polling. Pew, for example, found earlier this year that large majorities of Americans want to expand solar power (77%) and wind power (68%). Both of these technologies also continue to have substantial cross-partisan appeal: Pew found that the majority of Republicans (61%) want to expand solar and around half (48%) want to expand wind power, though these figures among Republicans have been trending downward in recent years.
Most Americans believe that expanding clean energy will lower energy costs. Americans tend to see energy prices as a supply-and-demand issue, believing that boosting domestic energy production in particular will lead to lower household costs. To that end, Third Way finds that four in five voters (82%) believe that building more energy in the U.S. will lower energy costs.
The same sentiment holds true for clean energy in particular, with nearly three-quarters (73%) believing that building more clean energy in the U.S. will lower energy costs.
Americans name solar as the most affordable energy source but name wind as the most expensive. When asked to identify the most affordable energy source, voters are more likely to choose solar energy (26%) than any other energy source. Nuclear energy comes second, with 22% believing that it is the most affordable energy source.
When asked to name the most expensive energy source, meanwhile, voters are more likely to name wind (20%) than any other energy source. Oil (16%) and coal (13%) round out the top three energy sources that voters perceive as the most expensive.
It’s important to note that, while they outrank other options on these questions, only around one-quarter of voters are identifying solar as the most affordable energy source and only one-fifth identify wind as the most expensive. These figures underline that there is no public consensus on the relative affordability of different energy sources.
When it comes to expert consensus, Americans’ hunch that solar is now the cheapest energy source is well-supported. However, the idea that wind is the most expensive source is not backed up by the data. Per the International Energy Agency last year, solar and wind are the “cheapest options” for new energy generation. And research shows that U.S. coal plants in particular are far more expensive to maintain than to replace with renewables.
[AZ] American Lung Association – Arizona voters across party lines want more clean energy in the state and believe that expanding it would save Arizona families money [Release, Memo, Topline]
Arizona voters widely support the expansion of wind and solar in the state, while far fewer want to expand fossil fuels. Three-quarters of Arizonans say that the state should use more solar power (75% more / 14% the same / 7% less), and roughly three in five say that the state should use more wind power (59% more / 20% the same / 13% less).
Meanwhile, only three in ten support expanding natural gas (31% more / 43% the same / 14% less). This falls to just 10% who support expanding natural gas when it’s referred to as “methane gas” (10% more / 28% the same / 32% less).
Arizona voters are also far more likely to say that the state should use less oil (13% more / 38% the same / 38% less) and less coal (11% more / 29% the same / 44% less) than to support the expansion of these energy sources.
There is a broad sense that expanding clean energy in the state will help lower families’ utility bills. Three-quarters of Arizona voters (75% agree / 16%) agree that “using more clean energy like wind and solar would save Arizona families money.”
Large majorities also agree with several other statements about the need for action on climate and clean energy:
- 76% agree that Arizona should implement policies that expand clean energy like wind and solar
- 74% agree that using more clean energy like wind and solar would create quality jobs and strengthen Arizona’s economy
- 69% agree that climate change is already having a serious impact on this part of the country
- 68% agree that Arizona policymakers need to do more to combat climate change
Arizona voters across the political spectrum prefer that the state meet rising energy demand with clean energy projects rather than gas power plants. When asked to choose between clean energy and gas power plants to meet increasing demand for energy in the state, Arizonans prefer new clean energy projects like wind and solar farms (76%) over new gas power plants (24%) by a 52-point margin.
Democrats (90-point margin) and independents (64-point margin) both choose clean energy over gas power plants by overwhelming margins, and even Arizona Republicans prefer clean energy over gas power plants by a double-digit margin (12 points).
Voters see clean energy as the better choice for the state on every dimension–including health, costs, and reliability. By wide margins, Arizona voters say that building new clean energy projects like solar and wind would produce better results for the state than building new gas power plants in each of the following areas:
- Improving the health of Arizona families – 80% clean energy / 20% gas plants
- Reducing pollution to improve air quality in Arizona – 80% clean energy / 20% gas plants
- Reducing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events – 79% clean energy / 21% gas plants
- Being a long-term solution to our power generation needs – 74% clean energy / 26% gas plants
- Keeping customers’ electricity bills lower – 72% clean energy / 28% gas plants
- Strengthening the economy and creating good jobs in Arizona – 70% clean energy / 30% gas plants
- Improving the reliability of our electricity – 65% clean energy / 35% gas plants
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