Virginia

While partisanship remains strong among the rural electorate, more than one-third (37%) of rural voters appear "swingable" in future elections, depending on resonant policy proposals and messaging. Three messaging points — lowering prices; bringing good-paying jobs to local communities; and a populist message focused on corporate greed — received such broad support that they rivaled voters’ agreement on core values like family and freedom. Read additional analysis in the Daily Yonder's coverage.

The Build Back Better plan has majority support in key congressional swing districts, and ‘polluters pay’ laws and renewable energy investments are especially popular. These district-specific polls show that the Build Back Better plan has majority support in two very tough Democratic-held congressional districts. After reading a brief description that outlines the price tag and major provisions, Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux’s constituents in GA-07 support the plan by a 54%-44% margin and Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s constituents in VA-07 support it by a 53%-44% margin. Specific clean energy provisions poll even higher, as voters in GA-07 support measures to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy by a 64%-33% margin and voters in VA-07 support these measures by a 62%-34% margin. One finding from these polls that is broadly applicable regardless of the location you focus on is the salience of corporate accountability on climate change. When presented with the idea of reinstating ‘polluters pay’ laws to “require corporate polluters to fund the clean up of their industry’s toxic pollution and set a fee on oil and gas companies that emit methane,” voters back the idea by overwhelming margins in both GA-07 (72% support / 26% oppose) and VA-07 (68% support / 27% oppose).

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling on voters’ reactions to arguments from the two parties on climate change; the impact of climate change and the environment on battleground voters’ decisions in the upcoming midterms; an experiment in communicating about human-caused climate change using a “heat-trapping blanket” metaphor; Americans’ personal experiences with climate change; and the widening generational gap in Republicans’ environmental attitudes.

Delivering more political information to voters makes them vote more. COURIER’s unique method of boosting news on social media had a positive, statistically significant impact on voter turnout in the 2021 Virginia state election. There were two kinds of news tested on voters: local coverage of the Virginia 2021 gubernatorial race and candidates and localized coverage of federal policy solutions. These kinds of localized political news increased voter turnout by 0.2%. This experiment was tested on a pool of roughly 1 million Virginia voters on social media from September to November, 2021.