Latino Voters Support Clean Energy Investments and Climate Accountability
By Isa Alomran and Grace Adcox
For Latino voters, the rising cost of goods and services is a top issue. Majorities of Latinos report spending more on groceries, home electricity bills, energy costs, housing costs, and home insurance costs over this past year. Furthermore, Latino voters recognize extreme weather events driven by climate change and pollution have a direct impact on increasing kitchen table costs, and view climate action, including expanding the clean energy industry, as important.
Climate Power En Acción and Data for Progress recently surveyed 1,251 Latino likely voters nationally, including an oversample of Latino voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, offering the survey in both English and Spanish. This polling finds that Latino voters are concerned about climate change and related issues, think fossil fuel companies often compromise the health and safety of their workers, and want to hold oil and gas companies and their CEOs accountable for their contributions to the climate crisis. Latino voters are generally in favor of climate actions that would address other related top concerns, like the cost of living and public health. In addition to differences across partisanship throughout the survey, we observe differences by age. Compared with older voters, Latino voters under 45 prefer the expansion of clean energy over fossil fuel energy and view the clean energy industry as offering cost-saving and job creation benefits.
Rising Costs Are Top of Mind for Latino Voters
When asked about the top issues that motivate whom they vote for, in line with findings from other recent studies of Latino voters, nearly half of all likely Latino voters (48%) rank cost of living as one of their three top issues. In addition to immigration and crime, we find that other top issues for voters are cost-of-living related, such as health care, Social Security and Medicare, and employment and job creation.
Indeed, we see this concern most prominently when asking voters about their spending habits on essential goods and services. Eighty-two percent of Latino voters say they spend more on food and groceries than they did a year ago. Similarly, 66% say they spend more on home electricity bills, 65% spend more on gas for their vehicles, 63% spend more on home gas heating costs, 61% spend more on housing, and 50% spend more on home insurance costs.
Latino Voters Are Concerned About the Impact Climate Change Is Having on Costs
We also find that Latino voters remain very concerned about the impacts of continued reliance on fossil fuels, such as air and water pollution, climate change, and extreme weather events. This level of concern is about equal to, or slightly higher than, when we asked a similar question following the 2022 midterm elections, indicating that Latinos recognize the impacts of climate change on the issues they care about and view climate action as important.
To better understand the specific worries underlying concern about climate change, we presented voters with a comprehensive list of climate-change-driven issues and asked them to identify which ones they were most concerned about, if any. We find that Latino voters are broadly concerned about a range of impacts, including extreme weather events (16%), shortages in food and water (13%), and rising food costs due to disruptions in agricultural productivity (11%). Only 6% of voters indicate that they are not worried about any of the listed potential impacts of climate change.
To that end, it is unsurprising to find that 73% of Latino voters agree with a claim stating that by turning our attention to the clean energy industry, we can lower energy costs for everyone while building good jobs. Eighty-one percent of Democrats, 77% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans agree with this statement. We also find that 77% of voters under 45 — who are most likely to see the direct impacts of an expanding clean energy industry — agree with this statement, compared with 70% of voters 45 and over.
Furthermore, we find that Latino voters, overall and across party lines, support investing in clean energy as a way to ensure American energy independence and make climate change a top priority. Fifty-eight percent of voters think investing in clean energy provides families with sustainable and affordable energy options that reduce reliance on fossil fuels, while only 36% say it is more important to prioritize building out energy as quickly as possible to lower energy costs. Importantly, we also notice that 61% of voters under 45 prefer investing in clean energy over pursuing energy expansion at the cost of deprioritizing climate goals.
This finding reinforces the notion that while Latino voters are concerned about energy costs, they are also concerned about climate change. Indeed, they seem unconvinced that rapidly expanding fossil fuel energy production is more important than increasing energy independence and reducing reliance on fossil fuels through longer-term clean energy investments.
Latinos Blame Oil and Gas Executives for Higher Energy Costs and Want Them to Be Held Accountable
Latino voters are feeling the pain of rising energy costs, and they blame oil and gas executives. Seventy-seven percent of Latino voters place “a great deal” or “some” blame on oil and gas CEOs and executives for higher energy prices. Sentiment against oil and gas executives is especially strong, with 42% of Latino voters placing “a great deal” of blame on CEOs. Similarly, 76% of voters also place “a great deal” or “some” blame on utility companies.
Blame toward oil and gas companies and their CEOs for higher energy prices also extends to attitudes held about these groups. For instance, 53% of Latinos view oil and gas CEOs unfavorably, while 34% view them favorably. In contrast, two-thirds of Latino voters favorably view clean energy companies by a +41-point margin.
We also find that a majority of Latino voters (54%) think that oil and gas companies compromise the health and safety of their workers, prioritizing profits over their own employees. This view is shared by 62% of Democrats, 56% of Independents, and over a third of Republicans (36%). We also find that 61% of Latinos under 45 think oil and gas companies compromise the health and safety of their workers, compared with only 46% of Latino voters 45 and over.
To combat high prices and hold these oil and gas companies accountable, Latino voters support a tax on record oil and gas company profits by a +57-point margin, 5 points higher than a similar question asked following the 2022 midterm elections. The breadth of this sentiment extends across partisanship, as over two-thirds of Democrats (80%), Independents (77%), and Republicans (68%) support such a tax.
Conclusion
Latino voters, including those under the age of 45, support bold climate action and see that the clean energy industry offers cost-saving opportunities for consumers, in addition to public health and economic benefits for workers. While climate change is not necessarily the first issue to come to mind when deciding whom to vote for, Latino voters nevertheless recognize the implicit connections between a changing climate and the other top concerns that impact their daily lives. They furthermore view holding companies accountable for their role in worsening climate change and related issues, like public health, as an important priority. Specifically, they view oil and gas executives as most responsible for the climate crisis and view it as important to hold these companies accountable for their actions. Taken together, these findings help explain why, despite feeling the bite of inflation and experiencing rising energy costs over the past year, a majority of the Latino electorate sees investing in clean energy as a pathway to American energy independence, providing families with sustainable and affordable energy options.
Isa Alomran is a Lead Analyst at Data for Progress.
Grace Adcox (@GraceAdcox) is the Senior Climate Strategist at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology
From January 24 to 30, 2024, Data for Progress and Climate Power conducted a survey of 1,251 Latino likely voters nationally using web panel respondents, including an oversample of Latino likely voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, andPennsylvania. The sample was weighted to be representative by age, gender, education, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.