Strategic Recommendations for Coalition Rebuilding Post-2024 Election
The 2024 presidential election results revealed significant erosion in the Democratic coalition. The warning signs can be seen at least as far back as 2012, which suggests a deeper disconnect beyond inflation between Democrats’ agenda and the priorities of key voter groups. As a constituency nearly wholly aligned with the Democratic coalition, this raises concern for the climate and clean energy advocacy community.
As a result, climate advocacy must recalibrate its approach. Recalibration includes five key steps: help rebuild the coalition around a multi-racial working class and a commitment to Justice40 values; research public sentiment more than surveying voters’ opinions; exponentially increase innovative storytelling capacity; reframe the climate narrative around grid reliability; and landscape a complicated information landscape to develop a sophisticated, integrated distribution strategy to build and sustain narratives.
While this post is focused on climate and decarbonization policy to provide a focal point, the core principles can apply generally to building power — get to know a priority audience better with new research tools; increase capacity to reach the priority audience; adjust the tone and frequency of your communication; gain clarity of the atmosphere you’re communicating in; and prioritize the interests of the audience.
The Challenge: Key Takeaways from the 2024 Election
The Democratic Coalition is Showing Signs of Regression - The Democratic coalition decline, illustrated below, signals a broader political realignment. As a consequence, the climate and clean energy advocacy ecosystem, closely tied to the Democratic Party, is threatened by recession too. If the Democratic base recedes, so too does the movement to transition to a clean energy economy.
Much attention has been directed toward the red “shift” in 2024 as seen in the New York Times graphic below.
Credit: New York Times
However, we can see a similar trend in the 2012 presidential election in which President Barack Obama soundly defeated Mitt Romney, who is largely misaligned with the MAGA coalition of the past 8 years. Inflation and anti-incumbency were two of many factors contributing to 2024 voting results but they do not explain why Vice President Harris lost. And pinning the cause of defeat on these factors alone does not help build a durable coalition to achieve ambitious policy or political goals.
Credit: New York Times
Ruy Texeira has compiled an excellent list of data demonstrating the extent (and rapidity) of the recession since then-Senator Obama won the 2008 election (aka “the Obama coalition”). Here are a few datapoints that I’d like highlight to frame recommendations further down:
“Working-class (non-college) voters overall. Obama was the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the working class as a whole (3-point margin). But Harris lost them solidly by 13 points. Democratic decline: 16 points.”
Nonwhite working class voters. Obama cleaned up among nonwhite working-class voters, carrying them by 67 points in 2012. This election the margin was down to 32 points, cutting the Democratic advantage by more than half. Democratic decline: 35 points.
Black working-class voters. Black working-class voters gave Obama a 94-point margin in 2012, actually higher than among their college-educated counterparts. But in 2024, the Democratic margin among the black working class—64 points—was lower than among the college-educated, reversing the class polarity of the black vote. Democratic decline: 30 points.
Latino working class voters. These voters gave Obama a 43-point advantage, much higher than among the Latino college-educated. In 2024 this crashed to a mere 8-point advantage for Harris. Democratic decline: 35 points, two and a half times the decline among the Hispanic college-educated.
Young voters. Obama carried voters under 30 by 23 points; this election Harris managed only a 4-point advantage among this age group to the shock of most, particularly Democratic, observers. Democratic decline: 19 points.
Of course, this is comparing an age group that had a different generational composition in the two elections. But this should provide little comfort to Democrats. The 18-29 year old age group in this election was composed almost entirely of Gen Z voters, supposedly the leading edge of a generational shift that would make the voting pool ever more Democratic. In 2012, the 18-29 year olds who provided Obama’s 23 point margin were all members of the Millennial generation. In 2024, those voters are now entirely contained in the 30-44 year old age group, where Harris eked out only a 3-point advantage.”
Realignment with the Latino and POC Vote - Trump’s improved performance with people of color—especially Latino voters—signals shifting dynamics that challenge traditional Democratic multi-racial alliances. This realignment complicates the decarbonization and clean energy transition economic message, which must now reach a more diverse and fragmented electorate.
These factors place the Democratic coalition in an opposition position. Yes, there were some climate and clean energy victories like the survival of Washington State’s Climate Commitment Act surviving a ballot measure to repeal it. But these wins do not demonstrate building coalition power to scale and we do not see a pathway to rebuild the coalition around the working class through these local campaigns.
The Choice: Strategic Vision for Moving Forward
With Republicans controlling all three branches of government, the Supreme Court and lower courts, more governorships, and most state legislatures, the climate movement and Democratic coalition face a stark power imbalance. Additionally, conservative media dominates the national discourse, further amplifying challenges to advancing clean energy and decarbonization policies. In response to these challenges, we developed a few strategic recommendations for how decarbonization and clean energy advocacy can help rebuild the Democratic coalition. This is not a comprehensive solution, but rather a set of principles and actions designed to better align policy advocacy with public sentiment and the current political and socio-economic landscape.
1. Coalition Building: Prioritizing the Middle Class & Maintaining Commitment to Justice40
In order to ensure a durable decarbonization and clean energy agenda for the future, the climate community needs to play a pivotal role in rebuilding a multi-racial, equity-based Democratic coalition, starting with the working class. This requires acknowledging that voters care about personal progress. By designing policy and framing stories in terms of upward mobility—both for low-income Americans seeking to move into the middle class and for upper-middle-class voters seeking stability—we can bridge the gap between climate action and economic aspirations. This means expanding the base to find alignment with labor unions even if that means having conversations about “All of the Above” energy policy frameworks and being opportunistic with those conversations as a gateway to decarbonize and get increased renewable energy capacity.
Grassroots community organizing capacity needs to exponentially increase in order to ensure the durability of middle-class-orientated stories. It also means maintaining a commitment to Justice40 in policy design, advocacy and communications and supporting that commitment by investing more flexible funding in economic justice groups, and others who are invested in the economic and energy transition. This approach will allow the advocacy community to mobilize new messengers who are trusted within their communities—whether on economic or social justice grounds.
2. Research: Public Sentiment on the IRA
If public support is a list of voter preferences, public sentiment is the emotional map that underlies those preferences. Decarbonization and clean energy stakeholders need to urgently fund a comprehensive research project to gauge public sentiment and shape sentiment-driven advocacy and storytelling—creating associations, building emotional connections, and adapting to shifts in how issues are perceived. Majorities of Americans claim climate action is a priority and support taking action on climate. Climate ballot measures are winning. But climate-aligned candidates are not winning enough elections and the Democratic Party is now positioned as an opposition coalition. When a coalition is an opposition coalition, it needs to grow toward where public sentiment is. When the coalition is in power, it is in position to shift public sentiment toward its agenda.
The IRA offers an excellent opportunity to test its connection to broader issues like energy transition, economic development, and climate action and the public’s emotions underlying those connections. The comprehensive research project should prioritize testing public sentiment in the Ohio River Valley—where the tension between energy transition and industrial labor is most pronounced—and where we can gain insights that apply nationwide.
The research project should combine multiple methods including UI/UX research, emotion mapping and storytelling focus groups, in-depth interviews, sentiment analysis, implicit association tests, cultural context, projective techniques, and psychographic segmentation. This research should be conducted by an innovative, non-traditional firm such A-B Partners. The goal is to move beyond snapshot polling and understand the underlying feelings and narratives that shape voter preferences and opinions. This will help craft more resonant and durable messages that align decarbonization and economic priorities.
3. Storytelling: Authentic Narratives Thrust Sentiment-driven Advocacy and Storytelling
Effectively communicating to connect with public sentiment will require a focus on storytelling. Voters do not respond to abstract policy details—they respond to personal stories of struggle and triumph. And fortifying public sentiment in favor of an agenda requires people to respond before they vote.
This recommendation is more substantive than a tactical adjustment. We are suggesting a fundamental reorientation in advocacy communications toward sentiment-driven advocacy and storytelling – every policy priority must have a story component and every communications plan should be constructed around developing storytelling capacity with tactics for distribution across multiple media methods, including disseminating with aligned organizations and media entities in the information landscape.
The policy advocacy communities needs to break free from the mold that advocacy messaging is news and making news should no longer be the top advocacy communications priority. Resonating with audiences should be the top priority and story form is an effective way to do that. Further, delivering messages in story form allows messages to disseminate more broadly across more and diverse mediums and channels and, thus, reach more audiences. And stories are better for podcasts and video.
4. Reframing the Climate Narrative: Shift from "Climate Emergency" to "Grid Reliability"
The first step the climate advocacy community can take to reorient our coalition toward sentiment-driven advocacy and storytelling is to move away from the “climate emergency” narrative, which is no longer resonating with key swing voters. The climate action agenda is in a competition in the marketplace of ideas and voters are experiencing multiple emergencies that marketplace – top 2024 election message themes included: save women’s right to choose; save American jobs and society from immigrants; save our democracy from fascists; and save the planet from climate change.
An alternative approach should be to reframe the message around grid reliability, affordability, and national security because these are issues the public cares about. This approach appeals to voters’ fears of energy availability and utility bills (I.e. inflation), positioning clean energy as both a necessity for grid stability and a shield against economic uncertainty as well as framing fossil fuels and utilities as the “bad guys.” Grid reliability and affordability is also an accessible issue that voters feel a tangible connection to, in contrast to multiple existential crises.
Further, voters are more likely to act when they feel they are at risk of losing something of value—similar to the emotional appeal of healthcare or reproductive rights. The shift to 25-35% clean energy by 2030 is a practical, achievable goal that advocates can sell as a safeguard against economic instability and grid failures. Once policy progress is achieved, the grid emergency framework allows advocates and candidates to appeal to voters’ risk aversion.
5. Landscape Analysis: Mapping the Information Ecosystem
We can not expect key audiences to absorb and retain sentiment-driven advocacy and storytelling by simply relying on pushing out content with traditional media (paid, earned, social, and owned). Only 10% of Americans primarily access news through newspapers and only 2% of Americans under 30 do.
The climate community and Democratic coalition needs a comprehensive integrated distribution strategy that delivers stories and sustains narratives in spaces where priority audiences are consuming and absorbing information, not simply where they get their news. To develop this strategy, a SWOT analysis of the media and entertainment needs to be funded to gain a sharp understanding of the entire information landscape.
This analysis will help identify where the advocacy community is well-positioned in the information landscape and where it is not. The analysis can be leveraged to develop partnerships with media organizations across a variety of platforms to contribute toward developing a 24/7 content and story resource.
Ultimately, the information landscape analysis should help highlight real-world examples of individuals and communities navigating the energy transition. By amplifying these stories with an integrated distribution strategy that sustains narratives including but not limited to podcasts, social media, local reporting, and paid assets, we can humanize the climate and energy transition conversation and make it more relatable.
The Outcome: A New Path Forward
In the aftermath of the 2024 election, it is clear the climate and clean energy community and Democratic coalition cannot continue with the same approaches that worked in previous cycles. We must recalibrate our policy, messaging, research, and coalition-building efforts to meet voters where they are, not just where we think they should be.
This strategic shift will take time, but with a clear focus on people’s economic realities and fears, sustainable decarbonization and clean energy advocacy can resonate across America’s political divides and contribution to reversing erosion of the Democratic coalition. We recommend that we begin by commissioning research into public sentiment around the IRA and the energy transition, while simultaneously conducting a thorough landscape analysis of the media ecosystem. This will provide a solid foundation for the next phase of sentiment-driven advocacy and storytelling.
There are other ways to read the presidential election trends but it is strategically advantageous to assume the coalition is regressing. If we assume things are better than trends suggest, there is a greater risk the current trends will continue – losses will be more frequent and by greater margins. If, however, the trends are internalized, coalition leaders will inherit a sense of urgency and purpose that can lead to structural change and rebuilding the coalition.
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About the author:
Nick Kowalski is the Founder and Lead Strategist at Viewpoint Public Affairs, offering nearly 20 years of expertise in political management, strategic planning, policy advocacy, and coalition-building around climate tech, clean energy, and decarbonization. If you’re interested in collaborating to drive impactful change through political strategy or public affairs, reach out to Nick to start a conversation.