Issue: Climate Policy

Progressive narratives resonate more strongly than opposition messaging with communities of color, persuadable voters, and undecided voters. Climate is a top tier issues for persuadable voters: 64% percent of persuadable voters would be more likely to vote for a candidate who wanted to “move us toward reliable, clean and renewable sources of energy that create high-quality union jobs and curb damage to our climate.” Including the goals of “creating high-quality union jobs” increases support among all sub-groups of voters (base, persuadable, and conflicted) by 5-10%. This survey included many different kinds of messages on many different issues.

In the face of rising gasoline prices, use themes such as “American,” “independence”, and “freedom” when messaging about clean energy . This resource studied the different possible messages to use to boost support for clean energy, concern about climate change, and views on moving away from fossil fuels. The message that increased support for clean energy most highlighted the American-ness and independence of clean energy: “It’s time to move quickly towards clean energy. Clean energy is American energy. It’s 100% made in America, and it stays in America.” This message boosted support by 10.2% (compared to a control group that received no message about energy or climate), which performed better than the other six messages. A message that prioritized climate risks still significantly decreased support for fossil fuels. In addition to “American energy” and “clean energy for climate” messages, others tested were “clean energy is cheaper,” “clean energy is sensible,” “blame oil companies,” “dependency is dangerous,” and “freedom energy.”