Could former US president Donald Trump’s attempt to minimize the threat of climate change have cost him the 2020 election? Could a similar approach impact the upcoming election?
New research by a team of American scientists shows that the effect of climate change opinion was significant enough to change the outcome of the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden.
“In 2020, Joe Biden had a 75-point advantage among all voters rating climate change as ‘very important’ and a 72-point advantage among independents with this climate opinion,” explained the scientists in their paper “Climate change opinion and recent presidential elections,” a Center for Social and Environmental Futures report. “We attempt to quantify the size of this advantage, and we estimate it could have cost the Republicans 3% or more in the popular vote margin in the 2020 presidential election.”
Regarding the climate’s effect on the Electoral College vote, they said, “Our Electoral College simulator suggests that this effect was large enough to change the outcome of the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden.”
The research team employed two logistic regression models to project the potential impact of climate change opinion on the 2020 national popular vote, assuming all other factors remained constant.
A probability forest model was also utilized to assess the hypothetical outcome if climate change concern had not increased from its 2016 levels, maintaining all other variables. In each scenario, a swing of 3% to 6% in favor of the Republicans was projected.
“A 1-2% popular vote margin shift towards the Republicans could have been pivotal to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and any larger shift almost certainly would have been pivotal,” the researchers said.
The data for the regression models were taken from the Voter Study Group 2016 and 2020 data. The group has conducted regular and extensive surveys of US adults since 2010. There were 7,607 people included in 2016 and 4,513 in 2020.
Climate Change's 2024 Electoral Impact
Will climate change matter this November?
According to the study, the significance of climate change emerged as one of the top 10 variables in the probability forest analysis for 2016. In the 2020 analysis, it stood out as the single most crucial variable. Over four years, the proportion of voters considering climate change as “very important” rose from 38% to 46%, while those rating it as “somewhat important” or “very important” increased from 63% to 67%.
“These patterns together would seem to suggest that there is a political cost of climate change opinion to the Republicans, a cost which is increasing over time,” they said.
Lead researcher Matthew Burgess told The Jerusalem Post that he expects the trend to continue, meaning that this year, how Trump handles climate change “certainly could have an effect” on the election outcome.
“If Trump is the nominee and his rhetoric is similar to what it was in 2020, and opinion on climate change gets stronger, then my default guess will be that the effect of climate change in 2024 will be as big or bigger than what we saw in 2020,” Burgess suggested.
“If Trump is the nominee and his rhetoric is similar to what it was in 2020, and opinion on climate change gets stronger, then my default guess will be that the effect of climate change in 2024 will be as big or bigger than what we saw in 2020,” Burgess suggested.
He added that for Republicans who want America to be great, this “should mean leading the world in one of the biggest technological opportunities in our time.”
Climate Change: Public Perception
Trump made several questionable statements about climate change both during his presidency and leading up to the 2020 election, including calling climate science “a hoax” and a “money-making industry.”
In 2020, while wildfires raged in California, the former president told California National Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot that the climate would “start getting cooler” and “I don’t think science knows.”
In their research, the American scientists also investigated how voters prioritize climate change and their opinions on the issue and related policies. The study also looked into which political party voters trusted more regarding climate change.
They found that 67% of voters said climate change was a “somewhat important” or “very important” issue to them, and of those, 77% voted for Biden. About twice as many voters are concerned about climate change than those who are not. More than half of registered voters told Yale University last year that they would prefer a candidate supporting global warming action.
This is especially true among young American voters, the study noted – including among young Republicans.
“The fractions of Republicans aged 18-34 reporting being somewhat or very worried about climate change and believing that climate change will harm future generations were roughly 10% higher than the fractions of Republicans older than 55 expressing these sentiments, from 2018 to 2022,” according to the researchers. “A majority of Republicans under the age of 35 (59%), independents (72%), and Democrats (92%) agreed that climate change will harm future generations.
“Nearly half of Republicans under 35 (44%) reported being ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ worried about climate change, along with large majorities of independents (63%) and Democrats (91%) under 35,” they said.
A 2023 ABC News and Ipsos poll highlighted by the researchers found that more than a third (39%) of US voters trusted Democrats more than the Republicans on climate change; only 13% trusted the Republicans more.
Finally, the researchers highlighted that there has been a growing consensus around climate change in the last decade.
“Large majorities of Americans now acknowledge the basic scientific fact of human-caused climate change,” the researchers said, “and large majorities also support both a general desire for climate policies.”
These include taking steps to be carbon neutral by 2040, prioritizing wind and solar energy, tree planting, fuel efficiency standards and more.
Climate Change and Voter Trust
However, the study also showed that voters seldom rate climate change as their most important issue.
So, why would climate change opinion have such a substantial effect on the election?
Burgess told the Post that although the study could not specifically answer this question, the team has a few ideas.
First, the American people believe climate change is real and important, Burgess said. Therefore, “to hear a candidate saying it is a hoax or not real, they may wonder if they should trust this candidate on other issues.”
Second, climate change is vital to voters because it indirectly affects “kitchen table” issues that people do rank as their highest priorities, such as national security, the economy, immigration and crime, Burgess said.