STRATEGY BRIEFING:
2024 ELECTION
How Climate Wins Big
A strategic guide for climate-concerned people to help elect the Harris-Walz ticket and other climate champions running in the tightest races across the country.
How can I make the greatest impact this election?
Climate policy starts at the polls, and there’s a lot at stake this year. We need to elect the Harris-Walz ticket, win a pro-climate majority House, maintain a pro-climate majority Senate, and win pro-climate majorities in state legislatures across the country. When faced with such a tall task, it’s hard to know where to start and how to make the greatest impact. Well, look no further.
Here’s the simple strategy:
Turn out voters in key states. These are where the most competitive races with clear climate champions are nested, so our efforts will go the furthest there.
Help your network do the same. Collective action is far more powerful than individual action.
Looking for one simple, high-leverage action? Invite a few friends over for an Action Party. Order pizza, write letters or call voters, and have some fun while you’re at it. Get going now with this step-by-step Playbook.
Where should I focus?
Focus on the places where our efforts will go the furthest. Instead of making endorsements, we turn out voters where there are competitive, nested races with clear climate champions.
We love Venn diagrams.
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✅ Highly competitive: These races may be won or lost by the slimmest margins – sometimes only hundreds of votes! At this point in the election, either candidate could win. Check out the Cook Political Report’s national ratings and Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s state-level analysis.
✅ Climate champions: All candidates have a track record of pro-environment votes in Congress or show a strong commitment to climate action, per their endorsement by GiveGreen, a giving platform that ‘stamps’ donations as pro-climate.
✅ Nested: States where two or more competitive races with climate champions are on the same ballot. When we turn out one voter, their vote will be decisive in 2+ key races. In this analysis, we considered the Presidential race, pro-climate majorities in the Senate and the House, and pro-climate majorities in state legislative chambers.
ARIZONA
✅ President
✅ Senate
✅ House
✅ Down ballot
MICHIGAN
✅ President
✅ Senate
✅ House
✅ Down ballot
NEVADA
✅ President
✅ Senate
OHIO
✅ Senate
✅ House
PENNSYLVANIA
✅ President
✅ Senate
✅ House
✅ Down ballot
WISCONSIN
✅ President
✅ Senate
✅ Down ballot
Want to learn more about the climate candidates running in key House and Senate races?
There are dozens – if not hundreds – of important races for climate action this election. If you live in or near a competitive district, or have your eye on a race not listed above, green light, full-steam ahead. With so many close races and so many compelling climate candidates – at all levels of government! – you really can’t go wrong. Just remember to bring your network along with you!
Mobilize voters where it matters most – and help your network do the same.
You can be personally responsible for turning out pro-climate voters in the most important states. What a huge contribution to climate progress!
How do we Get Out the Vote?
Whereas ads are easy to tune out, personalized nudges from real people – even strangers! – have been shown to get voters to the polls. And since we’re strategically focused on key states, when we turn out one voter, their vote is decisive in 2+ competitive races!
Make calls
Speak live or leave voicemails for voters in key states with the information on how, when, and where to vote.
Write Letters or Postcards
Write and mail personalized messages to voters in key states with information on how, when, and where to vote.
Write to voters now
And more!
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Another impactful tactic is called ‘Relational Organizing.’ It’s the practice of connecting directly and personally with people in your network who live in key geographies and asking if they (1) are all set up to vote, (2) know who the climate candidates are, and (3) are interested in volunteering to get climate champions elected! Here's a playbook for that!
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Door-to-door canvassing or face-to-face conversations with voters at their front doors – is also a powerful tactic to get out the vote and said to be one of the most effective. That said, it’s a much bigger time commitment, and often includes traveling to the canvass site. If you’re up for the effort, it can be a lot of fun. Be sure to bring a crew! Here's a playbook.
3 impactful options to inspire collective action
Picture your friends who might make calls or write letters, if the opportunity presents itself. This is your chance to *be* the opportunity.
You’ll reach more voters than you ever could alone (say goodbye to cramped elbows from frantic solo letter-writing!). You’ll also hook your network on action, making it more likely they’ll come back for more – this fall, next election, and beyond. Talk about punching above your weight!
Do it one-off, or challenge yourself to do it every week until Election Day!
Host a gathering
Have a few friends over for Pizza and Phonebanking. Lattes and Letterwriting. Donuts and Donating. You can host in your apartment, at a favorite local bar, or your neighborhood park. Make it adults-only, or kid-friendly. The goal is fun climate action with friends.
Get set up with this simple Action Playbook.
Bring a crew to a virtual Hour of Action
Bring your friends, family, colleagues, your book group, etc to an existing Hour of Action. After a quick training from the facilitator, you’ll jump into your own private breakout room!
Request one – and get sample invitation language! – with this simple form.
Host a public event
Ready to activate your broader community? Host a public Hour of Action, in person or on Zoom. You can tailor it to an affinity group, or open it to all climate-concerned people. Join an active network of year-round hosts and build durable people-power through 2025.
Fill out this form and access the Organizer Toolkit here.
Stop! You know enough to step up and start making an impact.
(or continue scrolling to continue learning!)
Each of us has a unique sphere of influence: the people around us!
Picture some of your closest friends and family. Do they care more about climate action, thanks to you? Are they more likely to be civically engaged, thanks to you? Odds are the answer is yes, at least a little bit. That’s your sphere of influence at work. Of course it also includes your broader network, the communities you’re in – like faith groups, sports leagues, etc., and your neighbors.
Imagine the impact if you organize your network to take action, too.
Want to share this image with your network?
Do it instantly on Instagram or LinkedIn. (Thanks to our friends at Commons for this illustration!)
Going above and beyond as a climate advocate
In addition to GOTV, candidates need amplification and awareness-raising to win their campaigns.
This includes “direct mail” pamphlets, TV spots, social media ads, billboards, yard signs, etc. While this is typically the covered by the official campaigns and affiliated interest groups, there are a few key ways that advocates can help raise awareness, too:
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Fundraising – No, you don’t have to be rich (or have rich friends 👀) to make a big impact by fundraising! Get that idea out of your head right now. While the absolute dollar amount you raise is important, what matters even more is the strategic way that fundraising raises awareness about the climate candidate within your network. You can fundraise ‘asynchronously’ via email or host a fundraising gathering to ‘introduce’ a climate candidate to your network! Follow this step-by-step Action Playbook as early this fall as possible!
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You know more than the average person about how to make an impact in this election. It’s time to head to social media to answer (often unasked) questions like: Which races are most competitive? Do we have a shot at climate action in 2025, or are we doomed? How can I get involved?
Educate your own network with an authentic, inspiring post (sample posts coming soon!).
Hop into the Reddit threads and comment sections. Follow this step-by-step Action Playbook to ‘drop links.’
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More than half of climate-concerned voters aren’t aware that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is bringing tangible climate benefits to communities across America. Once they learn, they overwhelmingly support it (source).
To protect the IRA, we must boost its recognition and favorability. Jump into four different actions from our summer advocacy campaign, which is relevant through election day and beyond.
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Before you go rogue and tell a voter about the IRA on a phone bank…Not all voters are climate voters. In fact, many of the key races for climate will be decided by non-climate voters. And that’s OK!
For more on this nuance, check out our blog post: Winning For Climate
And of course, participating in the democratic process is a good thing, in and of itself. Here are some additional ways you can practice civic engagement for climate.
Check your voter registration, make a voting plan, and help everyone you know do the same. Jump into the step-by-step Action Playbook.
Have a Ballot Party: Have some friends over, open a bottle of wine, and work your way through this Climate Changemakers playbook (coming soon!) to understand your ballot through the climate lens.
Sign up to become a poll worker. Get started with Power the Polls.
What’s at stake for climate?
At the risk of sounding like a broken record: this election is mission-critical for our climate progress in the United States and around the world. Let’s do a quick stock-take.
Presidential
We need a pro-climate president to use regulatory authority to reduce emissions, present the U.S. as a climate leader on the world stage, and veto harmful legislation, should climate obstructionists control both the House and Senate. The president also sets the national policy agenda and enjoys the bully pulpit, driving the news cycle, setting the agenda for executive agencies, and influencing Congress’ legislative agenda. The ‘soft power’ of the presidency could not be more important: we are in the decisive decade, and climate action must be on the policy agenda these next four years.
Senate and House
We need a pro-climate Senate and House of Representatives to prevent a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and move forward on new legislative priorities. The Senate also has the unique power to approve presidential nominations for judges and heads of executive agencies. While it’s unlikely that we’ll see another major piece of legislation like the IRA in the next few years, there are still some high-priority climate ‘to-dos,’ most notably making it easier to build new transmission lines – the backbone of the U.S. electric grid. Transmission reform is necessary to fully realize the climate benefits of the IRA, bring clean energy projects online, keep up with new data centers and the “electrify everything” movement, and keep power reliable. See the Issue Briefing from our spring advocacy campaign on transmission reform for more.
Down ballot
We need pro-climate legislating majorities in state legislatures across the country. In the second half of this decisive decade, state and local governments will play an ever-more-important role in advancing our county’s climate progress. Think of the Inflation Reduction Act as Congress’ version of running the first half of a relay race. Indeed, the latest analysis from the REPEAT Project shows that it put the U.S. on track to get about halfway to our decarbonization goals. Now, state and local governments need to take the baton. If more states continue to pass bold climate policies that prioritize clean energy, restore ecosystems, decarbonize buildings, etc., the U.S. will be on track to meet our decarbonization goals.
For an even deeper dive on what’s at stake, check out this recent episode of clean energy podcast Shift Key, from Heatmap News.