Location: Ohio

The majority of registered voters in three battleground states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan) support the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Majorities across all three states believe the IRA is good for their health, energy bills, and home energy efficiency. Bipartisan majorities support the IRA and Solar for All, but there is a large partisan gap: In each state, Democrats are about 30 percentage points more likely to support the IRA. Political and economic characteristics are important predictors of perceptions of IRA benefits: Democrats, middle/high income voters, and homeowners are more likely to believe the IRA’s appliance rebates benefit individuals “like you.” Voters are most interested in local investments in energy efficiency, public transit, and parks: 2 in 3 voters want to see local projects focused on improving energy efficiency in homes and commercial buildings.

Voters in rural-heavy counties in Georgia and Ohio tilt toward supporting wind and solar farms, but attitudes are quite malleable. Inoculation against character concerns is hard, so it may be better to focus proactive messaging on the benefits of wind and solar farms. A plurality of voters start out supporting wind and solar farms in their community but fewer than half of voters have intense attitudes either way and one-quarter are completely neutral. While voters intuitively get the pollution reduction benefits of these farms, they are more skeptical of the benefits to themselves and farmers – and they are concerned about their ROI. Encouragingly, our messaging is effective at increasing the belief that wind and solar farms will provide benefits to farmers and families – and that they create enough energy to be worth it. However, efforts to inoculate people against concerns about the impact on community character in this research were unsuccessful. Opposition attacks have a real impact, but simple pushback that ties this disinformation to Big Oil and Coal CEOs is quite successful in defusing these attacks. Positive messaging is effective at building support, especially with Democrats, less conservative Republicans, and women.

The environmental disaster created by corporate greed forces us to reconsider how to restore trust in light of these systemic failings. Our neighbors in Ohio deserve better. This insight we take on the recent Ohio train derailment to uncover the larger systemic issues and raise some insights on how to continue holding institutions accountable.

Integrated, year-round community organizing is necessary to create people-powered political representation in the Midwest. Midwestern state economies have destabilized, and this has caused shifting politics, such as formerly Democratic or swing states now voting mostly for Republicans. This report dispels multiple myths about Midwestern politics, such as: some states swung irreversibly to the right; Midwest states can be won either by engaging only people of color, or by frantically chasing white Obama/Trump voters; retail politics can work in the Midwest by “treating” white voters with messages about the economy and Black voters with messages about race, while ignoring Native, Latino, AAPI, and other voters; and we can win Presidential, US Senate, or Gubernatorial races by dumping billions of dollars into paid advertisements each cycle, rather than building the human capacity to lead and govern. This report argues for intentionally, consistently organizing people into membership organizations, unions, and community institutions in order to move constituencies of people into political action and create political homes. Overall, this report argues for “state ecosystems” of democratically accountable movement groups to engage in electoral politics.

Polling done by Data For Progress in 11 states in August 2020 and released in September 2020 shows widespread popularity of the THRIVE Agenda, a legislative package for economic renewal with eight pillars that centers racial, economic, and climate justice. Polling was done in these states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. 
A majority of voters in each state support each of the eight pillars as do a majority of the voters in 40 competitive House races that were also polled.