62% of voters support climate protection measures, especially women, according to a new study

A new study from George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication found that “62% of registered voters prefer to vote for a candidate for public office who supports action on global warming,” and that “39% of registered voters say a candidate’s position on global warming will be ‘very important’ when deciding who to vote for in the 2024 presidential election.”

The study also concluded that there was strong “support for building local clean energy infrastructure.” “The majority of registered voters support climate-friendly infrastructure for generating and distributing energy in their area, including solar farms (65%), wind farms (58%), high-voltage power lines to distribute clean energy (54%), and electric vehicle charging stations (51%).” This support also crosses party lines, according to GMU. It is supported by “many liberal/moderate Republicans,” as well as the majority of Democrats. This is consistent with another finding of the study: 69% of moderate Republicans believe global warming is already happening, and 70% of moderate Republicans support increased funding for renewable energy research.

Women also care a lot about climate change, the study found, with 83% of registered female voters believing climate change is already happening. That’s important because women are now more likely to vote than men, as Celinda Lake, president of the renowned 30-year-old market research firm Lake Research Partners, explained in a recent in-depth interview on the Electric Ladies Podcast.

“Women are now registering and voting in greater numbers than their male counterparts,” Lake said, describing the power of female voters today as follows: “They represent 53 percent of the electorate, 59 percent of the Democratic primaries, and they actually decide the fate of the president, they will decide his presidency.”

Women are also key in swing states, Lake added, but warned: “They’re not monolithic. They can be a 40-year-old woman, they can be a young woman with a college degree. They can be a single mother, a woman of color, they can be a grandmother. So it’s very important to understand all the different types of women out there.”

What motivates women to vote on climate change?

“Women are very concerned about these (extreme weather) events, and they’re the ones who are really concerned about the impact on communities. They’re concerned that these communities, whether it’s Kentucky or Maui, have not recovered.”

She added that how the incumbent president handles these issues is also important to female voters. In 2024, we actually know how both the likely Democratic and Republican candidates handle these crises. Lake explained that female voters remember what Trump did when Puerto Rico was hit, for example, and “they’re outraged. They remember the vivid images of Donald Trump throwing paper towels at Puerto Rican people who had to leave their homes.” In contrast, “they like the compassionate president. They like someone who’s in tune.” Biden’s empathetic whole-of-government approach to these disasters seems more “in tune” with what women want in a president, according to Lake.

What motivates these voters beyond the situation in their own community? “They want to leave a better country for their children,” Lake said, adding, “Women have been heavily influenced by their children and grandchildren. They will say climate change is something that is really more on my agenda because my children talk to me about it and they listen to their children and grandchildren.”

It is important who explains it – and how

According to the GMU study, only 28% of women aged 18-34 and only 20% of men aged 18-34 hear about climate change in the media. The highest percentage of women hearing about it in the media is among women over 55, at 55% (compared to only 38% of men over 55).

Because many more women say climate change is important to them than hear about it in the media, there is an opportunity to communicate more.

Celinda Lake stressed that the way global warming and climate change are communicated is crucial, that women respond to the word “climate” and “They are very concerned about environmental pollution and the destruction of communities.”

“The language that resonates most with voters,” Lake explained, “is language that talks about how people experience things in their real lives. So it’s not about temperatures or, you know, statistics or acronyms. And that’s true for the economy, too.”

“It’s the extreme weather damage to the climate and the health problems that are more serious. And the impact on people’s everyday life experience,” she said. Interestingly, weathermen enjoy the greatest credibility among female voters, as Lake found in her research: “They are very respectful of people who report on the weather. Believe it or not, weathermen have enormous influence and are perceived as impartial. They are not perceived as a political force.”

“Women are also very responsive to officials,” Lake said. “First responders who say, ‘I see this,’ more health care providers who say, ‘I see this more,’ nurses, people like that. Really. The people who translate (climate change) into costs to humanity, the people who are impartial, officials who have firsthand, on-the-ground experience.”

Climate is a key issue in this November’s election – especially for women voters – so we’ll see how the candidates respond and how that’s reflected in the actual voting results.