Environmental Polling Roundup – January 9, 2026
Headlines
Yale + GMU – Partisan polarization on climate change and clean energy is as strong as ever, but bipartisan majorities still oppose federal rollbacks on climate research and clean energy [Website, Report]
Reuters + Ipsos – Americans are wary of a long and costly U.S. entanglement in Venezuela, and oppose the U.S. taking control of Venezuela’s oil fields by a double-digit margin [Website, Topline]
Navigator – Voters are still making up their minds about data centers, but concerns about them driving up energy prices resonate across the political spectrum [Website, Deck, Topline]
Key Takeaways
Americans’ worries about an expensive entanglement in Venezuela overshadow any perceived energy benefits. A Reuters-Ipsos poll finds that initial reactions to the Venezuela raid are predictably partisan: most Republicans back the Trump administration’s actions, while Democrats widely disapprove of them. The public’s concerns about a costly foreign entanglement, however, are bipartisan: majorities of Democrats and Republicans say that they’re concerned that the U.S. will get too involved in Venezuela and that it will come at too great of a financial cost.
On the topic of oil, around half of Americans believe that Venezuela’s oil is a motivation for the U.S.’s military strikes against the country. And, by a 17-point margin (29% support / 46% oppose), Americans oppose the idea of the U.S. taking over Venezuela’s oil fields. As this data shows, Americans’ concerns about the cost of yet another foreign entanglement outweigh any possible benefits in terms of boosting the U.S.’s energy supply.
In fact, until we see data that suggests that Americans actually believe that the seizure of Venezuelan oil will lower their own costs, we would advise advocates not to repeat that talking point–even if it’s in an attempt to refute it. Instead, we can meet the public where they are by asserting that we shouldn’t get entangled in costly foreign conflicts when people are struggling with the cost of living here at home.
Despite deep partisan polarization on climate and energy, bipartisan majorities oppose federal rollbacks. The latest wave of Yale and GMU’s long-running “Climate Change in the American Mind” study finds that Democrats and Republicans are as far apart as ever in their prioritization of climate change and clean energy. However, their data also shows that Republicans are more indifferent about climate change as a priority than outright opposed to action on the issue. For example, when presented with a hypothetical political candidate who supports action on climate change and one who opposes action on climate change, Republican voters are split in their preference.
Additionally, Republicans’ low prioritization of climate change does not mean that they want to weaken policies on the issue. Yale and GMU find that large, bipartisan majorities oppose each of the following:
- Ordering federal agencies to stop providing information about global warming to the public
- Stopping federal agencies’ research on global warming
- Prohibiting the construction of new offshore wind farms
Good Data Points to Highlight
[Venezuela + Oil] Only 29% of Americans support the U.S. taking control of oil fields in Venezuela, while 46% oppose the idea [Reuters + Ipsos]
[Endangerment] 74% of voters support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant [Yale + GMU]
[Climate Change + Elections] 59% of voters would prefer to vote for a candidate who supports action on global warming, while just 13% would prefer to vote for a candidate who opposes climate action [Yale + GMU]
[Justice] 80% of voters support strengthening enforcement of industrial pollution limits in low-income communities and communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by air and water pollution [Yale + GMU]
[Clean Energy] 77% of voters support funding more research into renewable energy sources [Yale + GMU]
[Clean Energy] 66% of voters say that the U.S. should use more renewable energy than it does today [Yale + GMU]
[Clean Energy] 65% of voters oppose prohibiting construction of new offshore wind farms [Yale + GMU]
[Clean Energy Siting] 57% of voters support building solar farms in their local area [Yale + GMU]
[Clean Energy Siting] 53% of voters support building wind farms in their local area [Yale + GMU]
[ANWR] 67% of voters oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge [Yale + GMU]
Full Roundup
Yale + GMU – Partisan polarization on climate change and clean energy is as strong as ever, but bipartisan majorities still oppose federal rollbacks on climate research and clean energy [Website, Report]
Partisan polarization on climate change and clean energy is as strong as ever. Recent waves of Yale and GMU’s long-running “Climate Change in the American Mind” study have shown the widest-ever gaps between Democrats’ and Republicans’ prioritization of climate change and clean energy since the start of their tracking data in the late 2000s.
This most recent wave, fielded in November, finds that around half of voters (49%) believe that global warming should be a “high” or “very high” priority for the president in Congress. Roughly four in five Democrats (81%) say that the issue should be a “high” or “very high” priority, compared to just 16% of Republicans.
And while the majority of voters (61%) say that developing sources of clean energy should be a “high” or “very high” priority for the country, there is a 55-point gap in prioritization of the issue between Democrats (88%) and Republicans (33%).
Partisans have been diverging from each other on these issues over time, and that trend has accelerated in recent years. Yale and GMU’s tracking found that Democrats’ prioritization of global warming and clean energy spiked in 2017, shortly after Trump took office the first time, and has generally held steady since as climate and clean energy have become unifying issues for the party. Meanwhile, Republicans’ levels of prioritization declined during Biden’s presidential term and have dropped to new lows since Trump took office for the second time.
Voters on balance have a clear preference for candidates for public office who support action on climate change. Voters say that they’d prefer to vote for a candidate who supports action on global warming (59%) over a candidate who opposes action on global warming (13%) by a 46-point margin. While Democrats nearly unanimously (89%) favor candidates who support action on the issue, Republicans are divided in their preference (28% candidate who supports action / 29% candidate who opposes action).
Republicans (43%) are also much more likely than Democrats (10%) to say that a candidate’s climate stance doesn’t affect their vote choice either way.
Many voters believe that climate change is impacting the cost of living. Roughly half of voters (49%) believe that global warming is having at least “some” impact on the cost of living in the U.S., including nearly three-quarters of Democrats (73%) but only around one-quarter (25%) of Republicans. This data shows that there is significant room to educate the public about this link by making more direct connections to the costs that concern them most. These include how climate change raises crop and food costs, leading to higher prices for groceries, and how pollution causes asthma, heart disease, lung disease, and other common health problems that drive up the costs of health care for everyone.
Majorities agree both that the U.S. should use more renewable energy and less fossil fuel energy. When asked about the country’s energy future, roughly two-thirds (66%) say that the country should use more energy from renewable sources like solar and wind. This includes the overwhelming majority of Democrats (88%) and a plurality of Republicans (43%).
Only 12% of voters, including about one-quarter of Republicans (23%), say that the country should use less renewable energy than it does today.
When it comes to fossil fuels, the majority of voters (55%)–including 79% of Democrats but only 29% of Republicans–say that the country should use less fossil fuel energy in the future. Just 18% of voters, including about one-third of Republicans (32%), say that the country should use more fossil fuel energy than it does today.
Specific climate-friendly policies still attract wide, cross-partisan support, while federal climate rollbacks are unpopular. Despite deep polarization over the general prioritization of climate and clean energy, majorities of voters–and, in most cases, bipartisan majorities–support each of the following specific climate-friendly policies:
- Providing federal funding to help farmers improve practices to protect and restore the soil so it absorbs and stores more carbon – 87% support, including 81% of Republicans
- Strengthening enforcement of industrial pollution limits in low-income communities and communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by air and water pollution – 80% support, including 67% of Republicans
- Funding more research into renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power – 77% support, including 56% of Republicans
- Regulating carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant – 74% support, including 55% of Republicans
- Transitioning the U.S. economy (including electric utilities, transportation, buildings, and industry) from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy by 2050 – 66% support, including 36% of Republicans
Meanwhile, voters widely oppose the climate and clean energy rollbacks that the Trump administration has pursued or enacted. These unpopular policies include:
- Eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – 79% oppose, including 65% of Republicans
- Ordering all federal agencies (such as NASA, NOAA, and the EPA) to stop providing information about global warming to the public – 77% oppose, including 64% of Republicans
- Ordering all federal agencies (such as NASA, NOAA, and the EPA) to stop doing research on global warming – 77% oppose, including 63% of Republicans
- Prohibiting the construction of new offshore wind farms – 65% oppose, including 53% of Republicans
- Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement – 64% oppose, including 35% of Republicans
Notably, the decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement was the only policy choice that the survey specifically attributed to President Trump. And the sequence of the survey reveals how quickly Republicans line up behind Trump’s positions, regardless of their prior inclinations. While the majority of Republicans (57%) said that they supported the United States’ participation in the Paris Agreement after being told that the U.S. signed it in 2015 along with 196 other countries to limit the pollution that causes global warming, an even larger majority of Republicans (65%) then said that they support Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement after learning that he had done so.
Voters are split on the ideas of drilling and mining on public lands and waters (and widely oppose drilling in the Arctic), but support renewable energy projects on public lands. When asked about various types of possible energy projects on public lands and waters, voters are far more supportive of clean energy generation than fossil fuel production:
- Generating renewable energy on public land in the U.S. – 75% support / 25% oppose
- Expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coast – 49% support / 50% oppose
- Drilling and mining fossil fuels on public land in the U.S. – 45% support / 54% oppose
- Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – 33% support / 67% oppose
Reuters + Ipsos – Americans are wary of a long and costly U.S. entanglement in Venezuela, and oppose the U.S. taking control of Venezuela’s oil fields by a double-digit margin [Website, Topline]
Americans’ initial reactions to the Venezuela raid are predictably partisan. Americans are split roughly evenly between approving (33%), disapproving (34%), and being unsure about their approval (32%) of the U.S. military action in Venezuela to remove President Maduro.
The operation is widely supported by Republicans (65% approve / 6% disapprove) but deeply unpopular among Democrats (11% approve / 65% disapprove), and independents lean against it by a double-digit margin (23% approve / 35% disapprove).
Americans, regardless of their politics, are wary of getting into a costly foreign entanglement. Cross-partisan majorities of Americans express concern about each of the following scenarios:
- Risk to the lives of American military personnel in Venezuela – 74% concerned, including 64% of Republicans
- The U.S. will become too involved in the situation in Venezuela – 72% concerned, including 54% of Republicans
- The financial costs of U.S. involvement in Venezuela – 69% concerned, including 54% of Republicans
Americans suspect that oil is a motivation for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and oppose the idea of the U.S. taking over Venezuela’s oil fields. Around half of Americans (51%) agree that the U.S. conducted military strikes against Venezuela to get more access to Venezuela’s oil, while just 23% disagree and an additional 24% are not sure.
Meanwhile, Americans oppose the idea of the U.S. taking control of Venezuela’s oil fields by a 17-point margin (29% support / 46% oppose). While most Republicans support the idea of taking over the country’s oil fields (59% support / 18% oppose), Democrats (10% support / 74% oppose) and independents (20% support / 50% oppose) both oppose the idea by wide margins.
Navigator – Voters are still making up their minds about data centers, but concerns about them driving up energy prices resonate across the political spectrum [Website, Deck, Topline]
Voters still aren’t hearing that much about data centers. Around four in ten (43%) say that they have heard at least “some” about the discussion around building new data centers in the U.S., including just 13% who have heard “a lot” about the topic. Around one-quarter (24%) say that they’ve heard at least “some” about potential new data centers being built in their community specifically.
Voters have no clear inclination about whether building more data centers is a positive or negative thing for the country, or for the communities where they’re built. Slightly more voters say that building more data centers would be a good thing (23%) than a bad thing (18%) for the country, while around one-third (34%) say the impacts will be mixed and one-quarter (25%) don’t know enough to say.
As for local communities where data centers are built, voters are also split quite evenly between saying that data centers will be a good thing (22%) or bad thing (25%) for residents. Meanwhile, 31% believe that local impacts will be mixed and 22% don’t know enough to say.
Republicans are more sympathetic to the arguments in favor of data centers, but the issue isn’t particularly partisan as of yet. Navigator presented voters with the following balanced arguments for and against the ramp-up of data center construction.
- Pro-Data Center Argument: “We should encourage more building of data centers so that we can boost our economy, create good-paying local jobs, and stay competitive with countries like China on technology and economic development.”
- Anti-Data Center Argument: “We should try to slow or stop the rampant construction of data centers because they drain local energy, hurt our economy and our health, raise costs for consumers, and make tech billionaires even richer.”
Overall, voters are split quite evenly between siding more with the argument for data centers (48%) and the argument against them (52%). Majorities of Democrats (62%) and independents (56%) side more with the argument against data centers, while most Republicans (59%) side more with the argument in favor of them. However, these partisan differences are far smaller than we typically see for issues related to energy or public policy in general.
Concerns that data centers will drive up utility costs resonate across the political spectrum. When asked to choose the most concerning potential impacts of data centers from a list of possible concerns, the idea that data centers will raise energy costs is the most common concern for voters overall (40%) and also topped the list of concerns for Democrats (38%), independents (39%), and Republicans (42%).
Below are the percentages who chose each potential consequence as one of the most concerning to them personally:
- Data centers will use up too much energy and raise utility costs for local residents – 40% top-two concern
- Data centers will be prime targets for cyber threats and ransomware attacks – 25%
- Data centers will use up scarce water resources and put more pollution in the air – 21%
- Data centers pose a major health risk to those near them and have been linked to increased cancer rates – 19%
- Data centers will worsen climate change due to their high energy demands – 18%
- Data center outages can cause significant disruption and financial losses – 17%
- Data centers can cause significant noise pollution for local residents – 11%
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