Ask Black voters in the seven states likeliest to decide the midterms what will drive their vote, and 74% say the cost of living. Only 9% put climate change in their top three. Ask the same voters what candidates should do, and 89% say lowering energy costs is important, 86% say cutting air and water pollution, and 82% say addressing climate change.
The numbers come from a poll by HIT Strategies, conducted Sept. 24 to Oct. 10 among 2,003 Black and Latino registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Climate Equity Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters, two groups that campaign on climate policy, commissioned it. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.53 percentage points for the full sample, so it is wider for Black respondents alone. It was an opt-in online panel, not a random-sample phone survey, and one poll is not a trend.
What it suggests is a gap in vocabulary more than in concern. Voters who do not rank “climate” as an issue still worry about the thing it touches: the power bill, the water, the air. In the same poll, 85% of Black and Latino respondents said they worry about safe drinking water, 84% about air quality and 85% about food safety.
“Black and Latino voters haven’t tuned out climate. They see it in their power bills and in the air they breathe,” said Andrea Cristina Mercado, president of the Climate Equity Action Fund.
Data centers, the fast-growing buildings that run artificial intelligence and cloud services, are where the two concerns meet. When respondents were told Congress had considered protecting consumers from data center electricity costs, 52% of Black voters still expected the facilities to raise bills for ordinary Americans. Across the full sample, 79% feared higher costs.
That doubt is not about the science. Erica Tebbs, a senior analyst at HIT Strategies, put it as a question of proof: “The proof that is needed is that their concerns will be addressed and responded to by elected officials and that a vote will result in a real impact in their community.” Nearly half of Black respondents doubted that meaningful climate action was possible, while 45% believed voting and advocacy could hold officials accountable.
The sponsors also report that the share of respondents who picked climate as a top priority more than doubled by the end of the survey, after they had answered questions linking it to costs and health. That shows how much the wording of a question moves an answer. It does not show how people will vote.
Election Day is Nov. 3.
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