Dems Will Need Wins To Make The Climate Policy They Passed Actually Happen
The Democrats had a big accomplishment this year with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a confusingly named bill that is probably the most significant climate change policy of the past 20 years. The IRA includes nearly $400 billion in grants, tax incentives and loan guarantees for clean energy; another $250 billion for upgrading energy infrastructure; and $43 billion for consumer incentives like tax credits to encourage people to buy more energy-efficient electric appliances.
That’s a lot of money. But so far, that’s all it is — money. To get from a big pile of cash to actual reductions in carbon emissions you have to spend it — and that means getting programs implemented, businesses recruited, communities informed. Getting that done is going to require state-level Democrats to have allies in federal offices and a Congress that isn’t actively trying to stop all of this from happening. And that means winning some elections.
According to public-opinion data gathered and analyzed by the Yale Program on Climate Communications and the George Mason Center for Climate Change Communication, 61 percent of Americans want Congress to do more to combat climate change. Meanwhile, six of our toss-up races are also focus points for a major, focused ad campaign by the League of Conservation Voters and Climate Power Action, which is specifically focused on convincing people to vote for a candidate because that person either voted for the IRA or supports it. And the scope of that campaign is targeted directly at nearly 2 million specific American voters who care about climate and live in districts where their vote is likely to make the most difference.
The toss-up Senate races in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania are all part of this campaign — and those states all hover around the national average for support of climate change action by Congress. Toss-up House races in Nevada’s 1st District, Pennsylvania’s 7th District and Virginia’s 2nd District are also part of the ad campaign, though knowing how voters there likely feel about climate change is harder because of redistricting. All three districts are now less blue than they were in 2020, with Pennsylvania’s 7th and Virginia’s 2nd now leaning Republican. But the 2021 opinion map shows that a Republican lean in a district doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of support for climate change policy. With the IRA on the line — and voters who have been targets of some serious ad spending — these could be some interesting races to watch tonight.