The 2020 presidential election was supposed to be a Democratic sweep. But the so-called “blue wave” never materialized. The presidential election was tighter than most polls predicted, the GOP looks set to hold on to the Senate, and Republican candidates managed to gain, on net, five House seats, with many more still undecided.
In many ways, this might have been the best-case scenario for the conservative movement. Unshackled from the toxicity of President Trump’s persona and retaining control of the Senate, the GOP has an opportunity to rebuild itself without relinquishing immediate political control. Yet the election results were worrying for conservatives in a different way.
Among voters aged 18-29, Trump only won 33% to Joe Biden’s 62%. That gap is 10 points larger than in 2016 and even than in 2012 for Barack Obama. In key battleground states that ultimately swung to Biden, the generational divide was astounding. In Arizona, undoubtedly the biggest shock of the night, youth represented 17% of all votes, favoring Biden by 28 points. In Pennsylvania, the state that ultimately put the nail in Trump’s coffin, youth made up 14% of the electorate, favoring Biden by 23 points. In Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, and Wisconsin, all decisive states, the numbers were 15% and 29 points, 16% and 16 points, 21% and 15 points, and 14% and 27 points.
Compared to the approximately 43% turnout among young voters in 2016, this election is ultimately expected to have a historic 52% youth turnout. These voters backed the Democrats at a higher rate than any other age group.
While young voters were mostly put off by Trump himself (something the GOP can easily remedy next election by nominating another candidate), another crucial issue was at play: climate change. Public opinion polling indicates that climate change was one of young voters’ top political priorities in 2020. In fact, this has shifted considerably since 2018, when the environment didn’t even make the top six. As a result of recent climate protests organized by youth organizations such as the Sunrise Movement and ZeroHour, young people are increasingly voting on the issue of climate change and at a much higher rate compared to older generations. In 2020, they showed up in record numbers, and they voted overwhelmingly Democratic.
Nonetheless, there is a silver lining. Younger and more environmentally aware Republican candidates did outperform this election and will present a breath of fresh air in Congress. Representatives-elect such as Peter Meijer, Maria Salazar, and Nancy Mace all marketed climate change and clean energy as core platform points. They join incumbents such as Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Elise Stefanik as part of a new generation of conservative lawmakers that understand the environmental issues that matter to young people.
With Biden in the White House embracing the need for action on climate change, the opportunities for renewed GOP congressional climate leadership are abundant. To be clear, Biden’s climate plan has serious flaws, not least due to its expensive, top-down, mandate-heavy nature. But he will be forced to work with Republicans to pass any actionable climate policy, which presents a real opportunity for bipartisan leadership.
It appears that the biggest conservative fear of a unified Democratic government has been averted and with it the threat of the “Green New Deal.” Biden himself has tended to flip-flop on his climate plans, first promising a $1.7 trillion clean energy investment over 10 years, before upping the ante to $2 trillion over four years. The Democratic ticket has been equally ambivalent about fracking, with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris coming out against it, while the Biden-Harris campaign repeatedly assured voters that their administration would not ban fracking. Biden also tried to reassure voters during the first presidential debate that he was not in favor of the Green New Deal, whereas his own campaign website clearly calls it a “crucial framework.”
This stoked worries among conservatives that a Democratic sweep would see the more radical elements of the party take over Biden’s climate agenda and attempt to force through a hugely expensive Green New Deal. Both Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were part of the Biden campaign’s climate task force and are likely to have sway in the Oval Office on environmental policy. A Democratic sweep would have placed huge pressure on the new president to ramp up his climate plans with the congressional backing of an increasingly progressive Democratic Party. Yet, with Republicans likely maintaining the Senate, any climate policy remotely resembling a Green New Deal is firmly off the table.
Instead, conservative buy-in is crucial to any policy passed by the Biden administration. GOP lawmakers should relish this opportunity to put forward pragmatic, market-based, pro-innovation climate policies that harness both economic growth and clean energy development. They should focus on taking what is good from Biden’s climate plan (such as support for nuclear energy or carbon capture technologies and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies) and discarding what is harmful (such as mandating carbon-free electricity as early as 2035 and enacting overzealous regulations). The GOP can show that, after all, conservatives really do care about the environment and are unafraid to put forward sensible and bipartisan policy solutions. According to our numbers, they already have a mandate for this from young GOP voters, 77% of whom consider climate change an important issue, while 76% believe the government must engage on the issue by promoting economically sound solutions. Most importantly, 78% of independent voters aged 18-54 indicated that they would be more likely to back a Republican candidate if they embraced innovation-based climate action.
Ultimately, the Republican Party is facing something of an identity crisis. Trumpism was rejected at the ballot box, particularly among younger generations. Yet with a new crop of younger House members, likely control over the Senate, and free from the Trump brand, conservatives must set about rewinning the hearts and minds of younger voters. Let’s start with the issue that matters most to them: the environment.
Christopher Barnard is the national policy director at the American Conservation Coalition,
