Environmental Polling Roundup – October 14th, 2022
HEADLINES
- Washington Post + ABC News – Half of voters say that climate change is at least a “very important” factor in their vote for Congress this year (Article, Topline)
- Navigator – Two in five voters call climate change a “major crisis” for the country, but views vary widely by partisanship (Topline)
- Kaiser Family Foundation – Americans prefer to vote for candidates who support climate and clean energy investments, but most don’t know that these investments were included in the Inflation Reduction Act (Release, Topline)
- UC-San Francisco Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) – Voters overwhelmingly agree that companies should do more to remove harmful chemicals and plastic from consumer products; most say current chemical regulations are not strong enough (Release)
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Americans are prioritizing climate change very strongly, if not especially broadly, in this year’s midterms. A new WaPo/ABC poll finds that the economy and inflation continue to rank as dominant issues for voters in the election, with climate change ranking a tier or two below. However, the WaPo/ABC poll and Navigator both find that climate change is a top priority for Democratic voters, and The Economist and YouGov find that climate change and the environment is one of the issue areas that Americans are most likely to choose as their single most important issue. All of this data shows that climate change is one of the issues that provokes the greatest depth of feeling and strong prioritization, even as the public doesn’t agree as broadly on it as a priority as it does on some other issues.
- The public is still hazy about what the Inflation Reduction Act does, including on climate change. Polls have consistently shown that everyday Americans are not familiar with the specific provisions that were included in the Inflation Reduction Act, and new polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that most voters don’t know about the bill’s climate and clean energy investments. The poll finds that these investments continue to be well-received, however, as voters say that they are more likely to vote for candidates who support these investments.
- Plastic pollution has emerged as an environmental issue of widespread concern. The UC-San Francisco Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) finds overwhelming agreement that companies should reduce plastic in consumer products and broad concern about the impacts of chemical and plastic pollution on climate change. These findings are consistent with polling commissioned this year by the World Wildlife Fund, which found overwhelming agreement on the need to minimize plastic packaging and shift away from single-use plastics.
GOOD DATA POINTS TO HIGHLIGHT
- [Plastic] 88% of voters agree that companies should do a better job of removing plastic and plastic packaging from consumer products [UC-San Francisco]
- [Chemicals] 93% of voters agree that companies should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products, including 62% who agree “strongly” [UC-San Francisco]
- [Chemicals] 54% of voters believe that chemical regulations are not strong enough, compared to just 21% who say that chemical regulations are about right and only 10% who say that chemical regulations are too strong [UC-San Francisco]
- [Chemicals + Plastics + Climate Change] 76% of voters are concerned about the impact that chemicals and plastics have on climate change [UC-San Francisco]
- [Climate Change + Midterms] Voters are nearly twice as likely to say that they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports “making big, new investments in climate and clean energy programs and in tax credits for renewable energy” (51%) as to say that they are less likely to vote for such a candidate (26%) [Kaiser Family Foundation]
- [Climate Change + Midterms] 51% of voters say that climate change is at least “very important” in their vote for Congress this year [WaPo/ABC]
- [Climate Change] Over two-thirds of voters (69%) say that climate change is at least a “major problem” facing the country, including 41% who rate it as a “major crisis” [Navigator]
- [Issue Priority] More Americans name climate change and the environment as the single “most important issue” to them than any other issue besides inflation/prices, jobs/economy, and health care [Economist/YouGov]
FULL ROUNDUP
Washington Post + ABC News
Half of voters say that climate change is at least a “very important” factor in their vote for Congress this year (Article, Topline)
The Washington Post and ABC News find that climate change is a major factor for half of the electorate in deciding who to vote for in this year’s midterms.
Among registered voters, 51% say that climate change is at least “very important” in their vote for Congress this year. This includes 14% who say that climate change is “one of the single most important issues” for them, which was the strongest response option offered in the survey.
For context, the Washington Post and ABC News find that voters are about 10-15 points more likely to say that crime (67%), abortion (62%), and immigration (62%) are at least “very important” in their vote than climate change (51%). And all of these issues rank behind the economy (85%), inflation (79%), and education (77%).
The public’s prioritization of climate change relative to other issues varies considerably from poll to poll, depending in large part on how poll questions are framed.
When The Economist and YouGov asked Americans in a survey this week to rate how important various issues are to them, 40% said that climate change and the environment are “very important” to them – one of the lowest figures of the 15 issues that the survey asked about. When the survey asked people to select the one issue that was the single most important to them, however, more selected climate change and the environment as their number one issue (10%) than any other issues besides inflation/prices (20%), health care (11%), and jobs and the economy (10%).
Findings like this demonstrate that, while climate change isn’t prioritized as widely as some other major issues, those who view climate change as a priority are disproportionately likely to view it as a very high priority.
In the Economist/YouGov poll, for example, considerably higher percentages said that issues such as crime (59%), taxes (54%), and guns (51%) are at least “very important” to them personally than climate change and the environment (40%). At the same time, however, voters were more than twice as likely to name climate change and the environment as their single “most important issue” (10%) than crime (4%), taxes (4%), or guns (4%).
The WaPo/ABC poll is a good example of how partisan polarization leads climate change to rank behind other issues as a broad priority for the public: while nearly four in five Democrats (79%) say that climate change is at least “very important” in their vote, less than half of independents (46%) and only 27% of Republicans say the issue is “very important” for them in this election.
The WaPo/ABC poll also finds that people of color are especially likely to rate climate change as a major factor in their voting decisions. Pulling from the Washington Post article on the poll:
“Consistent with previous polls, Black Americans (69 percent) and Hispanic Americans (58 percent) are more likely to say climate change is important in their vote than White Americans (46 percent). Those findings come as research shows that communities of color are disproportionately exposed to dirty air, tainted water and other environmental hazards.”
Navigator
Two in five voters call climate change a “major crisis” for the country, but views vary widely by partisanship (Topline)
The latest national tracking topline from Navigator further illuminates how wide the gap in partisans’ attitudes about climate change has grown.
The poll asked about six issues facing the United States and found that just under seven in ten voters (69%) rate climate change as at least a “major problem” for the country, including 41% who call it a “major crisis.” For context, voters are about as likely to rate climate change as a “major crisis” as they are to rate abortion bans (43%) and immigration at the southern border (45%) as “major crises.”
Meanwhile, clear majorities say that inflation (70%) and gun violence / mass shootings (59%) are “major crises” for the country and about half (49%) call violent crime a “major crisis.”
While the electorate on the whole therefore doesn’t perceive climate change as one of the country’s most urgent problems, consistent with other public polling, Navigator finds that climate change is one of Democratic voters’ core priorities.
The poll finds that three in five Democrats (60%) rate climate change as a “major crisis,” compared to 41% of independents and just 21% of Republicans. Of the six problems the poll asked about, only gun violence and mass shootings (75% major crisis) clearly outranked climate change as a priority for Democratic voters.
Democrats in the poll ranked climate change as a crisis on par with abortion bans (63% “major crisis”) and inflation (61% “major crisis”), and they were considerably more likely to rate climate change as a “major crisis” than violent crime (44%) or immigration at the southern border (25%).
Kaiser Family Foundation
Americans prefer to vote for candidates who support climate and clean energy investments, but most don’t know that these investments were included in the Inflation Reduction Act (Release, Topline)
The latest national tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that candidates this year clearly stand to benefit by supporting investments in climate and clean energy programs.
Just over half of voters (51%) say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports “making big, new investments in climate and clean energy programs and in tax credits for renewable energy.” Only about one-quarter of voters (26%) say they are less likely to vote for a candidate who supports these climate and clean energy investments, while 23% say it wouldn’t make a difference in their vote.
Meanwhile, the poll finds that most Americans can’t affirmatively say that the Inflation Reduction Act includes these types of climate and clean energy investments. Even after being told that the Inflation Reduction Act made changes to climate policy and that one of the provisions being discussed as part of the law was to make “big, new investments in climate and clean energy programs and in tax credits for renewable energy,” only about four in ten Americans (42%) say they are aware that this provision was included in the law.
Americans are more likely to report knowing about the bill’s climate and clean energy investments than to say they know about other IRA provisions such as authorizing the government to negotiate some Medicare prescription drug prices (36%), capping monthly out-of-pocket costs for insulin for people with Medicare (29%), or placing a limit on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for people with Medicare (29%).
Still, the fact that less than half report knowing about the IRA’s climate and clean energy investments reinforces that the public remains very hazy about what the IRA accomplished and advocates accordingly have a lot of opportunity to continue to shape public attitudes about the bill.
UC-San Francisco Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE)
Voters overwhelmingly agree that companies should do more to remove harmful chemicals and plastic from consumer products; most say current chemical regulations are not strong enough (Release)
PRHE recently released select findings from a nationwide poll conducted earlier this year, and the survey adds to a growing body of public polling showing that the public is waking up to the dangers of plastic pollution.
PRHE finds that nearly nine in ten voters (88%) agree that “companies should do a better job of removing plastic and plastic packaging from consumer products.” Additionally, the poll finds that three-quarters (76%) are “concerned about the impact that chemicals and plastics have on climate change.”
These findings are consistent with polling commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund this year, which found that overwhelming majorities of Americans would prefer to buy products with minimal plastic packaging and would support phasing out certain single-use plastic products.
The PRHE poll also found broad agreement about the need to better protect consumers from harmful chemicals. The majority of voters (54%) say that chemical regulations are “not strong enough,” compared to 21% who say they are about right and 10% who say that chemical regulations are too strong. Meanwhile, voters nearly universally agree (93%) that companies “should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products” – including a clear majority (62%) who agree “strongly.”
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