For all the caterwauling about the Doooooooom coming from anthropogenic climate change, it is almost always a tiny issue during actual election seasons. This one isn’t any different
DEMOCRATS SHELVE CLIMATE CHANGE RHETORIC AS ELECTION NEARS
Democratic messaging on climate change has been stunted throughout the midterm election cycle, and most candidates are turning to other issues to connect with voters, The New York Times reports.
Health care and the economy consistently top polls of key issues and social security, immigration and guns usually perform well too. Climate change, energy and the environment are almost always counted among the least important issues to voters deciding who to support.
Of 161 potentially competitive congressional races, just a “handful†of Democrats have released campaign ads, either on television or the internet, that talk prominently of climate change and energy issues, Climate Nexus’s in-house database shows, according to TheNYT.
“Until voters in the U.S. perceive this as a quite imminent threat, it’s liable to remain mired in the middle of all the other issues,†Climate Nexus executive director Jeff Nesbit, whose group is dedicated to communicating climate change threat, told TheNYT.
The article points out that people like Tom Steyer and Al Gore have donated millions and millions on the subject, and, just like in previous elections, that money has been wasted.
Highly publicized environmental activism and data has not translated into widespread concern for broader issues of climate change, energy or the environment as far as elections go. The top issues of registered voters are immigration and health care, according to a June poll by The Pew Research Center. Immigration most interested 19 percent of registered voters and health care is the key issue for 13 percent.
In a survey in which one of seven broad topics voters were most interested in for the 2018 midterms, energy issues never performed better than 5 percent by any metric and was often the least supported key issue, other than issues that fall into the obscure eighth category of “other,†according to an April survey by Morning Consult.
So, pretty much no one cares. Not even Democrats. As Anthony Watts notes
In close races, speaking on climate change might motivate conservative voters to turn out against Democratic candidates rather than encouraging Democratic voters to cast their ballots, according to The New York Times.
About the only election I can think of where ‘climate change’ was bigly on the ballot was the 2012 Queensland, Australia election, where the ruling party who was passing ‘climate change’ laws and rules and such lost so badly that they didn’t have enough seats left to be considered a recognized political party afterwards. Pushing taxes/fees, measures that will raise people’s cost of living, and measures that limit people’s liberty aren’t winning issues.
