Green New Deal: Candidate Scorecards

The Green New Deal is an ambitious policy agenda to tackle the climate crisis, create quality jobs, and promote justice. It has become a core element of many Democrats’ platforms in the 2020 Presidential race, with more than half of all candidates endorsing the Green New Deal and widespread, bipartisan support among American voters.

For candidates to discuss and debate their proposals, the public needs to understand what’s in them.

To determine the thoroughness of each candidate’s climate platform in addressing the features of the Green New Deal and allow for some basis for comparison, Data For Progress created a Candidate Climate Plan Summary for the debate-eligible Democratic candidates’ climate policy proposals to date.

Using a rubric of 48 essential Green New Deal components, we identify where each candidate 1) addressed a component with a proposed federal policy or action, 2) acknowledged a component but lacked clear policy details, or 3) did not include a component.

We will develop and update these on a rolling basis for candidates with published presidential campaign plans, rather than public statements or legislative history. We assess only the presence of specific components but do not evaluate the merits of any particular approach.