The incoming Trump administration seeks to roll back federal climate initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act. In response, California’s Governor Newsom has announced that his state is ready to counter federal rollbacks on issues such as incentives for electric vehicles. Budgetary challenges, however, could limit state-level climate action. Moreover, new regulations that impose costs could face a voter backlash. Strong public support for state-level climate action will be forthcoming if voters see these policies creating local benefits that address their everyday problems.
This is where carbon pricing, whether as a carbon tax or as cap-and-trade, comes in. While the U.S. does not have federal climate pricing, some states have enacted cap-and-trade policies, including the State of Washington’s 2021 Climate Commitment Act (CCA). This was a major achievement because Washington voters twice rejected carbon taxes in 2016 (Initiative 732) and 2018 (Initiative 1631). Even after the CCA entered into force, its opponents tried to end it with a ballot initiative in 2024.
Efforts to Repeal the CCA
During the recent elections, Let’s Go Washington, an advocacy group led by Brian Heyworth, succeeded in placing Initiative 2117 on the ballot to repeal the CCA and end carbon pricing. This group blamed the CCA for Washington’s gas prices, among the highest in the country. CCA supporters, in contrast, highlighted the important contributions of CCA’s revenue (about $1 billion annually) to deliver local public goods, such as funding about a third of the state’s “Move Ahead” transportation budget.
In a surprising turn of events, Washington voters supported carbon pricing (by rejecting I-2117) by a 62-38% margin. This was a complete reversal of 2018 when Washington voters rejected carbon pricing (I-1631) by a 56-43% margin.
Gas prices are a sensitive issue in rural areas (counties with a population density of less than 100 persons per square mile, as per the Office of Management and Budget) because of high reliance on personal vehicles. Did gas price concerns diminish support for carbon pricing (and increase support for CCA’s repeal) in rural counties?
Support for Carbon Pricing in Rural and Urban Areas
With the help of Center for Environmental Politics Undergraduate Fellow Remi Vrilakas, we assembled a county-level voting dataset (posted here). We plot the vote shares of support for carbon pricing (“No” for I-2117 but “Yes” for I-1631) on both initiatives. The 45-degree line depicts situations where the support for carbon pricing is the same. If the support for carbon pricing was higher in 2024 compared to 2018, the dots would be above the 45-degree line. That is, support for carbon pricing has increased both in rural (green dots) and urban counties (black dots).
The figure below depicts the increase in support for carbon pricing by county (percent vote against I-2117 minus percent vote for I-1631). Urban counties are depicted in the left panel and rural counties in the right panel. On average, between 2018 and 2024, support increased by 19.8% points in urban counties and by 19.6% points in rural counties.
What happened? While in 2018, carbon pricing supporters focused on future benefits from carbon tax revenues, in 2024, they talked about existing local benefits from the “cap-and-invest” revenues such as investments in transportation. Recall that the federal Affordable Care Act became popular only after it was enacted and voters experienced its benefits. Along the same lines, the recognition of existing local benefits from the “cap-and-invest” revenues probably increased the support for carbon pricing in both urban and rural areas (and lead to the defeat of I-2117).
But Then Why Did Initiative 2066 Win?
Let’s Go Washington had placed another anti-climate proposal, Initiative 2066, which sought to prevent state and local governments from restricting access to natural gas in buildings and homes. While Washington voters rejected I-2117 by 62-38% margin, they supported I-2066 by 52-48% margin.
If voters focused solely on climate issues in the 2024 elections, the voting patterns on I-2117 and I-2066 would be similar. But they were not. A subset who voted against repealing the CCA (“No” on I-2117), supported I-2066 (continued access to natural gas). This is probably because voters did not see the benefits of gas restrictions in terms of lower household energy bills or reduced air pollution, which I-2066 opponents claimed.
The figure below depicts the difference in pro-climate votes (share of voters who voted “No” on I-2117 minus share who voted “No” on I-2066) across counties. On average, the difference between “No I-2117” and “No I-2066” is 12.4% points in urban counties and 9.2% points in rural counties. Thus, the support level for I-2066 was higher in both areas compared to I-2117.
The split votes on these initiatives offer a powerful lesson for climate communication. Rural voters are not anti-climate by default. Like urban voters, they assess policies based on local benefits and costs, ideally the experienced ones as opposed to the promised ones.
