What political candidates are getting wrong about the climate conversation

Matt Chester (0:00)

In the lead up to this year's midterm elections, it seems a prerequisite is that every candidate running for any office has to have a position and a plan for energy. Power costs, data centers, even permitting reform and reliability. With that intense focus, we're seeing the real action shift perhaps away from just Washington and into state legislatures, local races, even public utility commissions. Joining me to discuss it all today is Caroline Spears, founder of Climate Cabinet. Caroline, welcome.

So Caroline, 2026 may well be our most energy-heavy election we've had in the United States and under that backdrop, what do you find are some of the approaches or notions about energy that political candidates in these races are still getting wrong right now?

Caroline Spears (0:47)

What's been so surprising about the 2026 election and also about an election we just had in November of 2025 is how much energy issues are coming to the forefront. And you have this moment where energy issues were already top of mind for voters last year. You saw that in some of the November elections at the Public Service Commission in Georgia. Some of the governor races, they were already floating to the top because energy and electricity were intersecting with the cost of living and affordability issues that so many people are facing.

What's been surprising to me about going into this election is how those energy issues went from important in the last election to absolutely central. Every single candidate is talking about data centers. Every single candidate is talking about cost of living, affordability, gas prices. It's coming through in every single campaign we see. And as the central or one of the central main issues that we're hearing from candidates and from voters across the country. I've been surprised at how much that has completely dominated the political conversation all year.

Matt Chester (1:49)

Yeah. Do you expect that to stick around in the future? Obviously, as long as we're in economic conditions where that's one of the kitchen table issues, it probably will. But I guess I'm curious of moving forward, even if the economy rebounds, will this moment stick with us?

Caroline Spears (2:07)

I think what's coming through in the political ecosystem right now is that the conversation we're having is not necessarily about the economy. You can look at the stock market, and it's been going up all year. The conversation we're having is around something part of the economy that feels much more real to people, which is specifically cost of living. This has been a trend for a few years. It's not like it's just started in the last couple of years. Cost of living has come up in several election cycles over the last decade, but it's really dominating the entire conversation, specifically data centers and how they relate to the economic anxieties that people have, but also how they relate to cost of living with electricity costs. The second place is really coming up on energy. It's not just electricity and data centers, it's also gas prices.

We've seen that gas prices doubled in the last year.

That's coming through as well. In our experience working with folks this year, it's top of mind, but also not as big as the data center conversation.

Matt Chester (3:09)

Sure. Amid all of this, I'd love to ask if there are any candidates or I guess currently serving officials who you think are getting the messaging and the game plan right.

Caroline Spears (3:20)

Yeah. I mean, I can think of one person who really was early on this trend last year. There's someone called John McAuliffe, who's a delegate in the Virginia State House, ran an entire campaign focused on data centers last year and overperformed by about 10 points in his race and in his district, kind of compared to what we are normally used to in his district specifically. So I would say John McAuliffe last year in the 2025 elections really took on data centers as a central part of his campaign. And in retrospect, that was kind of the canary in the coal mine or the early sign that this is going to be an issue that candidates could not just talk about, but that it was so central to where voters are that they would actually overperform by that much of a margin. John McAuliffe's in Loudoun County in Virginia.

Matt Chester (4:06)

That's their data center alley, that makes sense.

Caroline Spears (4:07)

Data center alley, right. So kind of central to it. And at the time, I thought, okay, this is someone who kind of knocked tens of thousands of doors, really got to know his constituents, and this is what his constituents said back to him. They gave him an overperformance of about 10 points. So I noticed that in 2025, and I was like, that's interesting.