2022 Midterm Elections: How important is climate change for voters in November?
Despite being one of the most pressing issues of our time only around half of Americans see addressing global warming as a serious issue.
There are plenty on voters minds for the midterms. With the economy struggling somehwat, issues that have been very important in recent years have taken a step back, including addressing climate change.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll from October suggests half of voters believe climate change is either “very important” or “one of the most important issues” in their vote for Congress. The results are entirely split by party, 79 percent of Democrats say climate change is at least very important in their vote, compared with 46 percent of independents and 27 percent of Republicans.
Considering all other issues in the poll, the environment ranked as the sixth most important.
Another poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group, found that ethnic minorities considered addressing climate change as one of the most serious issues, particularly Pacific islanders.
This comes as the UN published an environmental report that found there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C (global temperature increase) in place” nearly a year after the last global environmental summit, COP26. The “woefully inadequate” progress will mean rising sealevels, mass extinctions of animal species and inhospitable weather in more of the planet.
What are some of the other big reasons for voting?
Predictably, the polling suggests Republicans and Democrats have very different priorities.
For Republicans, the economy has been the stick to beat the Democrats. Earlier this year, inflation hit its highest level in over 40 years, increasing prices for everyone. They argue that the covid-19 spending plans instituted by the federal government were a key driver of this, ignoring the fact that inflation is actually higher in many other G7 and G20 countries and the war in Ukraine combined with price gouging are the real culprits.
Democrats have made the right to abortion a key campaign pledge. Despite being the government which has overseen the greatest restriction of women’s rights in years, the party argues that a big win on November 8 would allow them to codify abortion into nationwide law. At present it is up to the Supreme Court to decide whether it is a constituional right or not leaving politicians out of the process.