Nearly a year after the 2024 election, Democrats are still trying to figure out what went wrong. In the midst of this soul-searching, a new piece of advice has appeared: “Don’t say climate change.”
That’s the takeaway from a recent poll by the Searchlight Institute, a new Democratic think tank. Americans said they see climate change as a problem, but it’s rarely one of their top issues — voters in battleground states are more concerned with affordability and health care. But when asked which issue they think the Democratic Party prioritizes, climate change was number one.
This mismatch might explain, at least in part, why Democrats often get portrayed as out of touch. “Advocates and elected officials should understand that their messages are actively weakened by a focus on ‘climate’ over affordability and low energy prices, and that voters are looking for immediate help with rising costs rather than solutions to abstract problems,” Searchlight’s post about the polling said.
The results didn’t surprise Representative Sean Casten, an Illinois Democrat and longtime climate champion who’s been making the case that clean energy can lower electricity bills. Casten recently unveiled draft legislation called the Cheap Energy Agenda, along with Representative Mike Levin, a California Democrat.
