Democrats go quiet on climate as politics shifts

Democrats go – With midterm elections approaching, Democratic figures who once made climate change a defining issue are increasingly dropping the topic from speeches and social media—leaving Senator Sheldon Whitehouse as a vocal exception. Critics call it “climate hushing,”

For the last decade and a half, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has been willing to say “wake up” about climate change so often that it has practically become the rhythm of his public life.

But as the midterm elections approach, something has shifted inside the Democratic Party’s public messaging. The phrase has begun to disappear from Democratic speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances, according to the reporting. Whitehouse. a Rhode Island Democrat. is described as the main exception—having given some version of his “Time to Wake Up” speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times over the past decade and a half.

Whitehouse has blamed “climate hushers” for pushing the party to stop talking about the overheating planet. In a statement to Grist. he said climate change is “right now raising costs for families across the country through higher property insurance premiums. grocery and electric bills. and health care expenses.”.

The change didn’t happen overnight. Many point to 2024 as the moment when the fear about climate messaging started to take hold. After President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in all seven swing states. Democrats were left trying to understand where things went wrong. One popular theory was that Democrats spent too much time emphasizing social justice and planetary problems while giving less attention to everyday concerns voters cared about more—especially the rising cost of living.

Whitehouse’s view is different: global warming belongs in the same conversation as affordability, not as a distraction from it.

That tension now sits beneath a growing set of recommendations and arguments telling Democrats to stop leading with climate language. Last year. the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued advice reading “Don’t say climate change.” A recent op-ed in The New York Times argued that. “When it comes to climate change. for now. it might be better to say nothing at all.” In May—released under pressure—the early draft of the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy report of the 2024 election posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy “created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.”.

But the evidence for a supposed electoral cost is thin, experts told Grist. Matto Mildenberger. a professor of political science at the University of California. Santa Barbara. said. “It’s very zeitgeisty to assume right now that it’s really important not to talk about climate. or that Democrats have paid a political cost for talking about climate.” He added there is no hard evidence that discussing climate change hurts Democrats in elections. If anything, studies and surveys suggest it can provide a modest boost.

Democrats may be acting on a belief anchored in how voters rank issues. According to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. climate change ranked number 24 out of 25 when Americans were asked which issues will be very important to their vote. The explanation offered is that other concerns have risen—especially among liberal Democrats—around protecting democracy. government corruption. and the treatment of immigrants.

Still, experts argue the leap from low priority to electoral liability doesn’t hold. “It’s a logical leap,” Mildenberger said, to assume climate talk is a political liability simply because voters aren’t naming it as a top priority.

There’s also a deeper worry about what comes from going quiet. Some commentators argue Democrats can win seats and deliver climate action without keeping the topic front and center. Mildenberger disagreed with the idea that omission is cost-free. Without real discussion. he said. Democrats risk losing momentum for action and sending a signal that climate change is not important enough to build a broad coalition. “You actually need to have conversation and attention to an issue to slowly build the coalition and policy work necessary to address it. ” he said.

For Mildenberger. the consequences of stepping back look like rhetorical surrender—especially when polling suggests the opposing agenda is broadly unpopular. He pointed to Trump’s agenda as described in the reporting: blocking the construction of wind farms. scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites. and pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement. “All of this is. frankly. doing the service of the fossil fuel industry. ultimately. because it’s helping climate delay. ” Mildenberger said.

Whitehouse, for his part, argues Democrats are “poll-chasing,” parroting what voters say they want rather than stepping into the fight. “Many Americans don’t believe Democrats are fighters,” Whitehouse said. “The best way to shed that label is to actually step into the arena and fight. Our climate messaging has long been terrible. but it would be malpractice to shy away from a fight with Central Casting villains (the fossil fuel industry climate denial fraud and dark money corruption operations) with such high stakes for the economic well-being of American families.”.

As voters feel pressure from rising costs and surging gas prices, oil giants are raking in billions from the Iran war, the reporting notes—another dissonance Whitehouse believes Democrats could draw attention to.

Matters of election math are where the debate gets sharper. Matt Burgess. an economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to find common ground on the environment. agreed with the broader sentiment that Democrats alienated voters on cultural issues and lost sight of affordability. But he rejected the idea that climate change itself is a losing issue.

““There are lots of different lines of evidence that suggest that climate change as an issue overall helps the Democrats and hurts Republicans,” Burgess said.

Burgess co-authored a 2024 study that found that in a hypothetical world where climate change hadn’t been an issue in the 2020 election. Republicans could have gained somewhere around a 3 percent swing in the popular vote—enough to deliver the White House to Trump instead of Joe Biden. “If you have any issue that moves the needle a little bit in your favor in a super-close election. it can make the difference between winning and losing. ” Burgess said.

Exit polling complicates the story further. It suggests there’s little reason to believe climate change was a problem for Democrats in 2024 compared to other issues playing a larger role. Swing voters considered “US efforts to fight climate change” a reason to support Harris over Trump by 21 points. according to a survey of 5. 000 voters from Navigator Research just before and after the election. The reporting also describes that Trump won by large margins on inflation. the economy. and immigration—concerns that were top-of-mind for voters.

“The very simple version is, Trump winning those voters won the election,” said Bryan Bennett, who runs the independent consulting practice Loft Beck Strategies, advising Democrats and progressives. Bennett directed the post-election survey in his previous role at Navigator.

In other words. Harris didn’t lose because she mentioned climate change a few times—or because Democrats passed climate policies under the Biden administration. A county-level analysis from the Center for American Progress found that federal investments in infrastructure and manufacturing projects were linked to a very small improvement in Harris’s vote share. If there was a gap. the analysis suggests. it was that voters didn’t know enough about the federal government’s involvement to give the administration credit.

Even if climate messaging isn’t clearly harming Democrats at the ballot box. the party may still have reasons to mute the subject. Bennett pointed to a media ecosystem that is fractured: many people get their news from TikTok. YouTube. and podcasts rather than traditional sources. In that environment, he said, it’s harder for politicians to make their preferred narrative heard.

Democrats also have become more serious about “message discipline,” sticking to a central message to cut through noise. Bennett described how that focus drains oxygen from other issues. “So much of the oxygen in the room is taken up by. ‘How do Democrats deal with. and how do progressives deal with. talking about the economy in a way that really meets voters where they are?’” Bennett said. “And I think that inherently detracts from basically every other issue. regardless of whether it’s a good thing to talk about or not.”.

The Democrats who still mention climate change. the reporting says. increasingly do so indirectly—arguing clean energy is “cheap energy” and tying it to rising electricity bills. But polling suggests voters may want a more direct conversation. Last fall. 41 percent of those surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said they wanted political candidates to talk about efforts to reduce global warming more often. almost double the number who wanted to hear about it less.

That disconnect, experts suggest, may reflect a misperception. Studies show politicians and the public tend to vastly underestimate Americans’ appetite for taking action on climate change, including steps like carbon taxes and expanding renewable energy.

Mildenberger put it this way: “We have this tension where, I think, empirically, talking about climate change provides a net benefit. It’s a very small net benefit, but it is a net benefit.”

In a party still deciding what to emphasize in a high-stakes political season, that small net benefit—and the growing willingness to ignore it—may be the real story behind the climate myth Democrats can’t quit.

Democrats climate change midterm elections Sheldon Whitehouse political messaging polling Yale Program on Climate Change Communication Searchlight Institute Democratic National Committee autopsy report fossil fuel industry Paris climate agreement