Climate change has notoriously not been a voting issue, but a new Democratic political operation says it’s aiming to change that.
In doing so, the new group, dubbed Climate Power 2020, hopes to see a big payoff — to tee up an administration and Congress that would act aggressively on climate change in 2021.
The effort plans to capitalize in the near-term on the frustrations related to the coronavirus, linking President Trump’s rollbacks of climate regulations with his response to the virus in an effort to bring near-term poignancy to an issue voters typically see as a far-off concern. It’s a strategy some outside experts say could resonate with voters.
“2020 will be decided by small margins,” said Subhan Cheema, a spokesperson for Climate Power 2020.
“There’s a climate voter population out there that is ripe for mobilization,” he told the Washington Examiner. “If we communicate with them in a targeted way, and if we make climate an issue politically, those voters will have an outsized impact.”
Nonetheless, at least for now, Climate Power 2020’s effort is largely focused on electing Democratic politicians, with former Vice President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.
That’s even as some Republican lawmakers are beginning to outline their own climate policy plan, a shift in rhetoric from recent years when most in the GOP were hesitant to talk about ways to address greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate activists, though, say most Republicans still aren’t moving quickly enough toward the scale of action needed to meet global climate goals.
“We have to change the politics of this, and I think our elected officials need a wake-up call as to what matters and what can be done,” said Lori Lodes, the group’s executive director, in remarks made Monday on the radio program Signal Boost.
“I don’t know what’s going to shake the tree for Republicans, but I think it’s going to have to be really something stark, and no longer having their jobs would be one of those things,” added Lodes, an alum of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Obama administration.
Climate Power 2020 launched May 13 with the support of the League of Conservation Voters, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the Sierra Club. The operation is staffed by alums of the Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg campaigns, among others, and it boasts a star-power board of advisers.
Those include several top Obama administration officials, including former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, former White House science adviser John Holdren, and former White House adviser John Podesta.
Other big-name Democrats, such as former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, billionaire environmentalist and former 2020 candidate Tom Steyer, and Stacey Abrams, are also involved in the effort. And the board of advisers includes rising stars among progressive climate change activists such as Sunrise Movement head Varshini Prakash and Green New Deal co-author Rhiana Gunn-Wright.
Both centrists and left-wing activists within the Democratic Party sit on the advisory board — reflecting the desire of the organizers to unite climate activists behind a political goal and to avoid falling into disputes over how best to address climate change. That fight broke out in earnest during the Democratic primary and continues as more progressive groups pressure Biden to up the ante of his climate plan.
Matt McKnight, who directs the League of Conservation Voters’ Change the Climate 2020 Initiative, said the Democratic primary was a “race to the top” on climate policy. But he is hopeful climate advocates “can really be on the same page as we head into this election to make sure we replace this president.”
Climate Power 2020 says it sees an opening. Polling conducted on behalf of Climate Power 2020 found Trump’s environmental record is unpopular and could sway key voting demographics, such as Republican-leaning suburban women, minorities, and young people.
Though the group’s campaign is national, it plans to focus efforts on those key demographics in several swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina.
The effort faces an immediate hurdle, though. With the coronavirus outbreak raging, the pandemic and the economy are likely to be many voters’ top concerns when they head to the polls in November. It could be difficult for other issues to break through, especially climate change, which voters tend to see as a longer-term concern.
Climate Power 2020, though, will talk directly about the coronavirus pandemic in its initial outreach, most of which will be digital.
“This is one of those issues that the parallels are just so strong,” Lodes said in the radio interview. “Trump called climate change a hoax long before he called coronavirus a hoax.”
Some environmental policy experts say the coronavirus framing could appeal to persuadable voters, especially because the virus and the economic downturn have shifted focus to issues such as rebuilding and economic inequality.
“The idea of tying climate action with jobs and a fairer society is going to resonate with people even more than it would have when the Green New Deal was first proposed,” said Dan Farber, an environmental law professor at the University of California Berkeley.
People are also more “riled up” about the behavior of large corporations, such as oil companies, in the current environment, Farber said. “By connecting that with climate change issues, I think you can actually draw some energy into the climate debate.”
Farber added, though, that Democrats will have to tread carefully in swing states such as Pennsylvania, where there are a lot of fossil fuel jobs.
