Climate change matters to more and more people – and could be a deciding factor in the 2024 election

• Fewer than 5% of respondents in 2023 and 2024 Gallup surveys said that climate change was the most important problem facing the country.
• Climate change opinions may even have had a large enough effect to change the 2020 election outcome in President Joe Biden’s favor.

Measuring climate change’s effect on elections

• The survey asked voters to rate climate change’s importance with four options: “unimportant,” “not very important,” “somewhat important” or “very important.” In 2020, 67% of voters rated climate change as “somewhat important” or “very important,” up from 62% in 2016.
• Of these voters rating climate change as important, 77% supported Biden in 2020, up from 69% who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.
• This poll found that more voters trust the Democrats’ approach to climate change, compared to Republicans’ approach to the issue.

What might explain the effect of climate change on voting

• This means that climate change opinion would not need to have a very large effect on voting to change election outcomes.
• Second, candidates who deny that climate change is real or a problem might turn off some moderate swing voters, even if climate change was not those voters’ top issue.
• Third, some voters may be starting to see the connections between climate change and the kitchen-table issues that they consider to be higher priorities than climate change.

Where the candidates stand

• Biden and former President Donald Trump have very different records on climate change and approaches to the environment.
• While in office, Trump rolled back 125 environmental rules and policies aimed at protecting the country’s air, water, land and wildlife, arguing that these regulations hurt businesses.
• He has also added several new rules and regulations, including a requirement for businesses to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.
• Biden has also signed three major laws that each provides tens of billions in annual spending to address climate change.

What this means for 2024

• If these trends continue, then climate change could provide the Democrats with an even larger electoral advantage in 2024.
• Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the Democrats will win the 2024 election.
• Immigration is currently the top issue for a plurality of voters, and recent national polls suggest that Trump currently leads the 2024 presidential race over Biden.

Matt Burgess receives funding from Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder.