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A new poll demonstrates that nearly two-thirds of registered voters across the U.S. believe the climate crisis is contributing to increases in their home utility bills.
The survey, conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications and published earlier this week, also notes that, ahead of the 2026 midterms, there is a strong preference among the American electorate for candidates to support policies that address climate change.
“The findings suggest energy affordability could be a unifying entry point for climate conversations, offering a way to discuss climate change that resonates regardless of political affiliation,” an explainer of the poll from the Yale School of the Environment suggested.
Per the poll’s findings, 66 percent of registered voters believe that the climate crisis — described as “global warming” throughout the survey — is presently causing their home utility bills to go up.
The poll also indicated that voters throughout the U.S. want corporations to do more to address the crisis, with 66 percent expressing that sentiment. Sixty-one percent of voters said that Congress and President Donald Trump should do more to address the crisis.
The survey found that 58 percent of respondents would back a candidate who supports taking action to address the climate crisis. Only 14 percent said they would back someone who actively opposes action on the issue.
Forty-two percent said they’d like to hear candidates discuss the climate crisis more often, while 17 percent say they’re satisfied with the current level of discourse. Only 23 percent said candidates should speak less often about the crisis.
A quarter of respondents (25 percent) said they will “only vote for a candidate who supports decreasing the use of fossil fuels.”
The poll also asked respondents their views on data centers, finding that 58 percent of voters oppose building them in their local areas. Sixty percent of voters believe their energy costs would go up if a data center were built near them, and 74 percent say data centers should offset their electrical use by installing rooftop solar panels and weatherizing local homes.
Recent figures indicate that between 4,000 and 5,000 data centers are currently running in the U.S. Beyond high electrical use, larger centers are also consuming up to 5 million gallons of water each day. It’s estimated that around 3,000 more data centers are currently under construction or planned to be built in the near future.
Many communities are rallying against the construction of these centers, noting that they could harm residents in other ways.
“The serious negative health consequences [of data centers] are really concerning to a lot of people,” said Samantha Stewart, an Ypsilanti, Michigan-based resident and organizer against nearby data centers.
Like the Yale survey, Stewart views data centers as an issue that bridges political divides — and one that could help prepare organizers for future endeavors.
“I want to build trust and bravery across a broad group of people so that we are ready for the next thing we need to fight,” Stewart said.
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