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Action on Climate is Critical for the Midterms
This week in The New York Times: “Youth engagement has reduced dramatically this cycle — and in midterm environments, engaging your base is a key component of success. We must avoid a 2014-style midterm, and the best way to do that is to raise taxes on the wealthy to secure clean energy independence,” DFP Executive Director Sean McElwee told Ezra Klein on the Ezra Klein show.
As many young folks take today to celebrate and reconnect with nature while raising awareness for the urgent need to protect our planet, it’s clear that empty promises and futile celebrations won’t be enough to mobilize the youth base. Some ideas of what this could look like? Ramping up clean energy production, holding fossil fuel companies accountable, using the defense production act to accelerate green energy, engaging indegonous voices to live up to his climate promises, and of course, a Green New Deal, just to name a few. Not to mention: they’re all overwhelmingly popular with voters.
The TL;DR for the establishment? It's time we stop pretending that climate solutions are negotiable and deliver on the policies that will secure everyone's livelihood and Congress in November.
Here are some other highlights from DFP this week:
Voters: “Eat The Rich”
This week we polled Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Income Tax proposal and find that voters — shocking! — are in favor of Jeff Bezos and Co. paying their fair share. In our experiment we attempted to simulate an environment where voters hear arguments for and against the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax.
Our polling finds that 66 percent of likely voters, including 53 percent of Republicans, think American billionaires should pay more in taxes, while only 4 percent think billionaires should pay less in taxes.
Then, we divided respondents into two groups: Supporters of the tax were shown arguments against the tax and opponents of the tax were shown arguments for it. We find that support for the proposal is robust: After hearing arguments against the proposal, only 14 percent of supporters are persuaded to oppose it. In contrast, after hearing arguments for the proposal, 34 percent of opponents, including 26 percent of Republicans, are persuaded to support it.
Thus, we find that after hearing arguments for and against, likely voters support the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax by a +30-point margin, including a +3-point margin among Republicans.
Prepare yourselves for some nerd shit.
In conclusion, the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax is a political winner. Read the full memo here.
C’mon Clarence.
Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve probably heard about some, uh, shady shit from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginny Thomas.
Coincidentally, new polling from us finds voters of both parties agree that the Supreme Court needs a code of ethics that would require justices to excuse themselves from cases involving their personal finances or their families: 81 percent of voters nationwide support a code of ethics, including Republicans by a +63-point margin, Independents by a +71-point margin, and Democrats by a +76-point margin.
Read the full polling analysis here.
Voters Support Harm Reduction Measures and Decriminalizing Small Amounts of Drug Possession
In the past year, over 100,000 Americans died from drug overdose, up nearly 16 percent from the previous year. New research from Data for Progress and People’s Action suggests that harm reduction policies and decriminalization, which have been proven to save lives, are supported by large majorities of the American electorate.
Among all likely voters, 79 percent (with a +64-point net margin) support expanding use of medication-assisted treatments that support individuals on their recovery path and help reduce withdrawal symptoms from opioid use disorder. We also find similarly large margins of support among Democrats (+77 points), Independents (+62 points), and Republicans (+52 points).
Among all likely voters, 64 percent (with a +33-point net margin) support opening overdose prevention centers, where people who have pre-obtained drugs can use them in a sterile, safe location, supervised by medical professionals in case of an overdose. We also find bipartisan support with +67-point, +31-point, and +2-point margins of support among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, respectively.
Read the full polling analysis here.
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