Friend —  on Tuesday, voters across the country rejected the MAGA movement’s extreme anti-environment, anti-democracy agenda. While results are still being tallied, it’s clear that environmental champions across the country won, continuing a trend we’ve seen over the last several elections.

LCV and our state affiliates worked hard to track key races and help ensure that climate and democracy champions prevailed in each. We are thrilled that voters elected state and local candidates who promised bold clean energy leadership and rejected cynical, baseless attacks from Big Oil and their political allies.

• In Virginia, Governor Youngkin led an unprecedented spending campaign by promising to establish a Republican trifecta. But despite this wave of attacks including a late effort to attack electric vehicles, climate champions held the state Senate and flipped the House of Delegates, ensuring a new conservation majority and a backstop against the governor’s extreme anti-science, anti-climate agenda.
  
  Virginia League of Conservation Voters-PAC (VALCV-PAC) invested over $2.2M to help elect climate champions in the state Senate and state House, by far their largest investment in state legislative races.
  
  They left everything on the field to elect environmental champions with a clear message — we refuse to go backwards on the vital safeguards we’ve passed in Virginia to address the climate crisis and protect clean air and water.


• In New Jersey, fossil fuel companies for months have funded astroturf organizations to undermine support for offshore wind. But pro-clean energy candidates, under an avalanche of anti-wind spending, won across the state, returning an expanded Democratic trifecta to Trenton.


• In a critical Pennsylvania State Supreme Court race, Democrat Dan McCaffery comfortably defeated Republican Carolyn Carluccio after a nearly eight-figure race. McCaffery’s win could go a long way to protecting our democracy from outside attacks and ensuring that climate action programs like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative get a fair hearing.

Year after year, voters continue to tell their leaders, if you tackle climate change and stand for clean energy, we will stand with you. 

LCV’s state affiliates worked tirelessly to support candidates dedicated to protecting our environment and democracy. Up and down the ballot, Big Oil spent millions trying to convince voters to turn our backs on a clean energy future, but voters once again rejected their lies.

These results are huge news for next year’s federal elections, Friend — thank you for standing with us. Together we can continue to build on these great wins and carry our movement to victory in 2024. 

Onward,

Pete Maysmith
Senior Vice President of Campaigns
League of Conservation Voters