The League of Conservation Voters plans to spend a “majority” of the $25 million it has raised for the November elections on its Senate ground game, largely by targeting 1.5 million “drop-off voters” who typically don’t participate in midterm elections and tend to be younger, Hispanic and female.
Such voters are in the environmental group’s “wheelhouse,” said Amy Levin, a partner with the Benenson Strategy Group, which did polling for the group.
The $25 million is a record for the politically active environmental group and is five times more than the amount the group raised in 2010.
While the league and other groups, like billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action, say climate change is a winning issue, it polls poorly in national voter interest surveys. So those groups have started emphasizing other issues in their advertisements. The League of Conservation Voters, for example, said it would target Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst of Iowa for saying she wants to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency and privatize Social Security.
Ramping up its turnout effort is another way the group is trying to get its desired results without calling the move a climate push.
Its turnout effort is geared toward boosting Democratic Senate candidates’ chances in Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and Colorado. Maintaining a “firewall” by keeping the upper chamber in Democratic hands is key, President Gene Karpinski said. A GOP-controlled Senate likely would roll back environmental measures.
The League of Conservation Voters says it’s not solely targeting Democrats. But it is making attempts to hit voting demographics that skew Democratic and are more supportive of environmental policies, such as proposed EPA emissions limits for power plants.
That rule, as well as other environmental regulations aimed at addressing climate change, has been under attack from Republicans and industry groups who say it would raise energy costs and harm the economy.
Environmental groups have made supporting the power-plant rule a litmus test for which races they will target. The proposal aims to cut electricity emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 — a move supporters say would help slow climate change, which most climate scientists blame on the use of fossil fuels.
The League of Conservation Voters also announced it would launch new advertisements in Iowa this week.
Karpinski said the group would look to enter other races in the coming weeks. Dan Weiss, the group’s senior vice president for campaigns, said it would endorse more Republicans. So far, the only Republican to snag the group’s support is Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
The group also is spending $5 million on state legislative and gubernatorial races, which it says could lead to more climate-friendly policies in some states.
