Voters don’t give Biden credit for passing climate bill

President Joe Biden spent his Earth Day in a national forest this year with an explicit pitch to young people: a climate jobs corps intended to excite Gen Z the way John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps inspired their grandparents. Biden took a selfie with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, the progressive New York Democrat, to remind voters that he was the first president to truly embrace elements of her Green New Deal, signing a signature $369-billion spending package in 2022 — the biggest climate bill in American history — to ignite the renewable energy revolution. But Biden isn’t reaping the political benefits. His lead over former President Trump among voters younger than 30 is down since 2020 — when he won that group by 24 percentage points.

His current lead among those younger voters is somewhere between the single digits and high teens, according to a variety of polls. The Harvard Youth Poll conducted in March found Biden leading by a 19-point margin but found Trump voters (76%) were far more likely to say they were enthusiastic than Biden voters (44%). And even on the issue of climate, Biden and Trump are statistically tied among voters younger than 30, according to an April CBS poll. Many young voters don’t know much about Biden’s climate record, and many of the activists who helped fuel his 2020 victory are angry with his approval of a high-profile drilling project in Alaska and his response to the Israel-hamas war.

“Climate, of course, is one of the most, if not the most, important issues. But because there’s such extreme attention being paid to other issues, it’s maybe getting a little bit less attention,” said Isabel Hiserodt, a 20-year-old senior at Arizona State University. Though Hiserodt is president of the campus chapter of Young Democrats in a top battleground state, she said she is personally more concerned with abortion access, which is likely to be on a statewide ballot, and Gaza, where she is critical of Biden’s approach. Her choice of Biden is “not necessarily the happiest vote.” An undecided voter in the process of moving from Arizona to Colorado, 25-year-old Ryan Williams, said he has heard only a little about Biden’s climate agenda but is thinking more intently about the two candidates’ economic policies, the biggest issue for all age groups, according to polls. Climate change ranked 12th among the list of 16 issues in the Harvard poll, which found young voters were most concerned with inflation, healthcare and housing. It’s “hard to say” how much climate will affect his vote because there are “a lot of different things happening in my life that take priority over researching what’s happening in the government,” Williams said, an aerospace engineer who voted for Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020.

Part of the challenge for Biden is the nature of environmental policy. Biden’s boldest changes are often buried in the language of regulatory process — such as a recent change in the rule that requires fossil fuel plants to cut their emissions. Wonky rules that curb the impact of fossil fuels are far less compelling on social media than the Biden administration’s decision last year to allow the drilling project in Alaska, which inspired protest posts that drew hundreds of millions of views on Tiktok and elsewhere. Many of the promised factories, jobs, car charging networks and cost savings in the $369-billion environmental spending law known as the Inflation Reduction Act — and a second $1-trillion infrastructure law — will take years to achieve, and may not be linked to Biden by voters.

The law also gives thousands of dollars in tax credits for electric cars and energy-saving home improvements such as solar panels. But younger voters are not likely to own homes and even discounted, used or leased electric vehicles may be out of reach. “That is a way that is super direct. You go and buy something and you get money back. Well, that’s barely just started,” said Pete Maysmith, senior vice president of campaigns at League of Conservation Voters, which is spending $120 million to promote Biden and other candidates this year. Maysmith’s group is trying to appeal to young voters with an animated Youtube video about how “Biden bodied big oil” by pausing new liquid natural gas export terminals. It uses stick figures with Biden’s head, stomping an energy plant with a stick foot. Environmental advocacy groups are largely rallying around Biden and hope that as the election nears, they can draw a contrast with Trump, who has called climate change a hoax and nonsense.