LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Registrar of Voters Office on Thursday offered an update on the work to complete the official canvass for the March 5 presidential primary.
The 28-day canvass period began the day after the election. Until it is complete and the election is certified, the election results are not final.
Since the last update, the March 12 deadline passed to receive ballots postmarked by the end of Election Day.
The elections office said that approximately 7,415 vote-by-mail, or absentee, ballots remain to be counted. That’s about 600 less than the last count, which was impacted by those additional ballots continuing to come in by mail.
There also are 266 provisional or conditional ballots, and 266 vote-by-mail ballots that require further review for various reasons, the agency reported.
The elections office said the grand total of ballots remaining to be counted as of Thursday was 7,947.
Effective this year, AB 63 requires that the elections office update vote results and unprocessed ballot counts at least once per week and post the updated information on its website.
Registrar of Voters Maria Valadez said her office may stop posting results if the only ballots left to count are the ballots for which voters have the opportunity to either verify their signature or provide a signature, or until they certify election results.
For more information, visit the Lake County Registrar of Voters website or call 707-263-2372 OR toll-free at 888-235-6730.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to state that the canvass period is 28 days, not 30, and to add information about AB 63.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Sheriff’s Office has identified the two men who died in a Sunday night crash in which a vehicle went into a swimming pool.
Lauren Berlinn of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office identified the men as Nickolas Wade Dilley, 39, of Perkins, Oklahoma, and Joseph Timothy Torres, 31, of Nice.
The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office said that shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday its officers responded to the crash.
A red 2021 Subaru WRX driven by Dilley was traveling on Butte Street in Nice when it went over the embankment, hit a fence and landed upside down in a swimming pool at a residence on Tehama Street, according to the CHP report.
Neither Dilley, in the driver’s seat, nor Torres, who was found in the back seat, were wearing seat belts, the CHP said.
The CHP said the crash’s cause remains under investigation, although alcohol use is suspected to be a factor.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday formed the latest in a series of municipal advisory councils, this one to serve a part of the Kelseyville area — although it won’t carry the name of Kelseyville.
In a unanimous vote, the supervisors approved creating the “Big Valley Advisory Council,” which is scheduled to hold its first meeting on April 17. The supervisors are expected to come back in two weeks to approve applicants, who are urged to submit their applications by March 27.
There will be five regular members and one alternate, serving two-year staggered terms.
Due to being created by the Board of Supervisors, the new council will be required to operate in accordance with the Brown Act. It is scheduled to meet at the Kelseyville Event Center, also known as the senior center, which the county of Lake is in the process of buying, a plan Supervisor Jessica Pyska promoted.
The council will not represent the entire Kelseyville area, but will cover the Kelsyville planning area, which also includes a portion of Lakeport.
It will not include the Kelseyville Rivieras, as Sabrina Andrus, a business owner and part of the steering committee for the creating the council, said the Rivieras already have representation through their homeowners associations. Pyska said she is encouraging the Riveras to form their own municipal advisory council.
While the board originally was to consider naming the new organization the Kelseyville Advisory Council, at the suggestion of the Citizens for Healing — the group that applied in the fall to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names to rename Kelseyville to “Konocti” — the supervisors chose to name it the Big Valley Advisory Council.
Supervisor Michael Green, whose district the council will partly cover, brought the suggestion forward to the board.
Lucerne resident Alan Fletcher, a Citizens for Healing member, thanked the board for accepting his suggestion to name the council “Big Valley” rather than “Kelseyville, a move which he said is more inclusive.
However, while board members like Moke Simon said he considered the name more inclusive and open, it’s also likely to be more confusing, considering that, based on the Kelseyville planning area map, Big Valley only covers about a quarter of the larger Kelseyville planning area that the council is supposed to represent. It runs from Merritt Road in the south to the lakeshore in the north.
Fletcher’s suggestion appeared to have been submitted on Monday night to the board through its ecomment section on the county website.
“I endorse the formation of a MAC, to remove the discussion of area matters from the members-only Kelseyville Business Association (KBA ) and a private Facebook page. As a participant in citizensforhealing.org, we noted the lack of a MAC in our proposal to ‘Rename Kelseyville to Konocti,’ wrote Fletcher.
“The proposer is surely aware by now that the name of ‘Kelseyville’ is being reviewed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, and has just been referred to the California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names,” Fletcher wrote. “I therefore believe that it should have a less specific, and potentially less provocative name.”
In an earlier version of the comment, Fletcher wrote, “Save the Name of Kelseyville (SNK) and the Kelseyville Business Association (KBA ) seem to be determined to stamp the offensive name on everything (a new sign, and fund-raising for an arch) … and will then quote the expense of changing them.”
Fletcher also asked the board to consider changing the area plan’s name to Big Valley instead of Kelseyville.
He was accompanied to the meeting by fellow Citizens for Healing group members Verge Belanger, an Upper Lake resident, and Lorna Sue Sides, who manages the Kelseyville Event Center. Belanger and Sides also spoke in favor of that council’s name change and conflated that action with the overall proposal to change the name of Kelseyville.
Group works to establish council
“The community has decided that it is time to establish a municipal advisory council in the Kelseyville area,” said Pyska.
Andrus and Brian Hanson are part of a group that got the effort off the ground.
“The hope for the group from the get-go was to provide an additional space for Kelseyville residents to come together, talk about issues that impact the community,” said Andrus, adding that the catalyst was the timing with the general plan and Kelseyville area plan, which needs to be updated.
In response to questions from Lake County News, Andrus said the effort started Jan. 12 when she sent out an email to a group of Kelseyville residents to discuss forming the council. The group that actually drafted the bylaws included Sabrina Andrus, her sister Caitlin Andrus, Brian Hanson, Greg Panella, Joy Merrilees, Megan Lankford, Rick White, Weston Seifert and Angel Acosta.
Hanson said they reviewed the bylaws of the six other municipal advisory councils in the county.
Those include the Middletown Area Town Hall, the first to be established in December 2006, as well as the Cobb Municipal Advisory Council, Scotts Valley Advisory Council, Western Region Town Hall, East Region Town Hall and the Central Region Town Hall, formerly known as the Lucerne Area Town Hall, which Supervisor EJ Crandell disbanded and reformed after community pushback over a homeless shelter plan for the historic Lucerne Hotel proposed by the Scotts Valley Pomo that came to light in December 2022.
Board Chair Bruno Sabatier said he found it “awkward” that the majority of the area is in District 4 but is titled as an advisory council to District 5. He also urged them to add a seat specifically for the Big Valley Rancheria.
“Because of the thousands of emails that we have received with what’s going on in Kelseyville, and I’ll leave it at that, this also covers the Big Valley area, the sovereign nation of Big Valley, and I would say, offer a seat, because everything that happens in that area has impact to our neighboring communities,” he said.
Pyska suggested working with Green to collaborate with the group. “I always believe that these municipal advisory councils come organically up from the community and I would like to respect that this is what they want to do and I feel like the two supervisors could join together and work collaboratively. We could both support the meeting. We could both be there to report out on what’s going on,” she said.
Rick White, one of the drafters of the bylaws, told the board he supported the Big Valley name for the group and said they have a lot of young people who want to be involved.
Sides thanked Pyska for putting forward the council plan and Green for bringing up its name change, adding she wanted to push out the western border to include more of the Big Valley Rancheria.
The Scotts Valley Pomo also asked for a seat, with tribal leader Gabriel Ray saying they own property and have tribal members who live in the area.
“We’re working on the name change,” he said, referring to the larger Kelseyville name issue, and said he was concerned the group’s formation was a backdoor way of getting around the name change.
Jeanine Pfeiffer, another member of Citizens for Healing, complained about not knowing about the advisory council proposal until that same day and that more public outreach was needed.
Ron Montez Sr., a Big Valley elder and historic preservation officer, also supported naming the council for Big Valley. He said inclusivity is something they have been seeking for years and that it’s been a stumbling block in the Kelseyville community and around the lake.
Sarah Ryan, environmental director for Big Valley Pomo, wanted them to waive the residency requirement because it would limit who the Big Valley tribal leadership could select to represent them on the council. Ryan also said the map seemed “arbitrary,” with multiple tribal-owned parcels not on it.
“We have to start somewhere and so this is the starting point,” Pyska said.
“Or the starting point that is proposed,” Sabatier said.
Andrus said the Kelseyville name change has not been a part of the conversation for the group that put together the council’s bylaws. Rather, she said their goal has been to draft a resolution, create bylaws and get them to this point.
Sabatier said they will be looking at diversity and inclusion in selecting council members.
Simon warned the group that the Brown Act “is a pain in the butt” to deal with. “It complicates things as much as it helps things out with these advisory committees.”
Pyska offered the resolution, with the name amended. The board approved it 5-0.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The county of Lake is now accepting applications to a newly formed municipal advisory council.
On Tuesday, March 12, the Lake County Board of Supervisors approved the establishment of Big Valley Advisory Council, or BVAC, as Lake County News has reported.
The purpose of BVAC is to advise the board on matters relevant to the Big Valley area as may be designated by the board, including, but not limited to public health, safety, welfare, public works, economic development, planning and land use.
A group of interested Kelseyville residents came together in early 2024 to determine the best way to increase participation of Big Valley area residents in public decision-making processes.
Steering committee members encourage anyone who is interested in participating in conversations related to BVAC’s purpose to attend council meetings, and anyone who is interested in helping to champion the interests of our community to apply to be a BVAC board member.
Steering committee member, local farmer, businessman and parent, Greg Panella, noted, “The BVAC gives a formal voice to the Big Valley area residents on key issues affecting our community. Prior to the formation of the BVAC, the unincorporated town of Kelseyville and parts of the Big Valley area had no organized and formal representative body to inform policies that affect the community we all call home. BVAC will now provide that forum.”
Any person who resides in the boundaries of the Kelseyville Planning Area may apply to sit on the BVAC Board.
How to confirm eligibility to apply
In the “Layers” section here (in most browsers, users will have to click or tap on the icon that looks like a stack of papers), select “planning areas” (the last of the layer labels).
Once selected, entering your address of residence in the search bar will confirm with which Planning Area the location is associated with:
Applications are due March 27, and may be found here.
Please note, membership on the Big Valley Advisory Council is voluntary.
For additional information, please contact Assistant Clerk of the Board Johanna DeLong at 707-263-2580 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The National Weather Service has placed all of Lake County under a wind advisory due to conditions expected to continue through Friday morning.
The wind advisory, which will remain in effect through 11 a.m. Friday, warns of northeast winds of between 20 and 30 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour expected, the forecast said.
The forecast said winds were expected to shift easterly, with gusty winds beginning in Trinity, Mendocino and Lake counties tonight beginning overnight.
Forecasters said wind gusts will intensify Thursday, peaking in the afternoon.
The National Weather Service said gusty easterly winds will affect much of the area, but especially in Lake County and ridges bordering the Sacramento Valley.
The agency said the wind gusts could make driving challenging.
Temperatures will drop into the 40s at night and rise into the 60s during the day, with the forecast anticipating daytime temperatures to be in the 70s by the weekend.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Yuba Community College Board is set to have another meeting in Lake County this week.
The board will meet on Thursday, March 14, at the Lake County Campus of Woodland Community College, 15880 Dam Rd Extension, Rooms 209 to 211.
A closed session will be held beginning at 3 p.m., with the regular board meeting at 5 p.m.
Members of the public may opt to attend this meeting virtually. The Zoom link is https://yccd-edu.zoom.us/j/85289077257; the meeting ID is 852 8907 7257. The call-in number is +1 669 900 6833.
To access the YCCD Governing Board meeting agendas, please visit https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/yccd/board.nsf/public#.
On Thursday, the board will consider extending the employment of the interim director of the Health and Medical Career Program and nursing, and as well as the extension and conversion of the employment of the college’s acting director of institutional effectiveness.
They also will discuss nonresident tuition, the STEM building modernization, easement dedications, the elimination of three full-time equivalent college police officer positions, the 2022-23 Audit Response Plan and a number of reports.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Amidst a national outbreak of measles, Lake County Health Services is emphasizing the critical importance of vaccination, particularly the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine, in safeguarding communities’ health.
Health officials said it's essential for parents to understand that unvaccinated children are at a higher risk of contracting measles and will be subject to exclusion from school if there are confirmed cases or exposure at their school.
Lake County Public Health emphasizes the importance of vaccination in protecting not only individual health but also the health of the entire community.
To enhance access to MMR vaccination, Lake County Public Health offers free vaccines at our Walk-In Clinic every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with a lunch break from noon to 1 p.m. No appointment is required; you can just walk in.
Public Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan stressed the urgency of the situation. “With the increasing number of measles cases in the USA and now in California, we are at risk for outbreaks of this vaccine-preventable illness in our county. Most of our Lake County schools have excellent measles vaccination rates but a few schools are under vaccinated. When measles vaccination rates are low, it opens the community up for measles outbreaks that can start in schools.”
Doohan said Public Health is grateful for partnerships with organizations such as the Kelseyville Unified School District, which will host a back to school event on May 30 from 3 to 6 p.m., offering free vaccines including the MMR vaccine for eligible children.
Key facts about measles:
• Measles is highly contagious and can be severe, especially in children under 5 years old. • Measles spreads through the air via coughing or sneezing. Wearing a mask can help prevent its transmission. • An infected person can spread measles even before developing the rash. • About 1 in 5 people with measles in the U.S. will be hospitalized, and severe complications can arise, including brain swelling and death.
“As your public health officer, I hope this information is helpful. We have had four confirmed cases of measles in California, since February 2024, most recently in an outbreak in nearby Davis,” Doohan said. “Regarding vaccination rates, Lake County is fortunate to have a relatively high MMR vaccination rate compared to our neighboring counties. However, this does not diminish the need for continued vigilance and promotion of vaccination efforts.”
In the face of the ongoing measles outbreak, Lake County officials remind community members that vaccination is a cornerstone of public health.
“Through our collective efforts we can protect our community from vaccine-preventable diseases and ensure a healthier community for all,” the agency said in a statement.
HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE, Calif. — Hidden Valley Lake Community Services District is developing an update to its 2020 Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, or LHMP.
Floods, drought, wildfires and severe weather are just a few of the hazards of concern to the district.
While natural hazards such as these cannot be prevented, an LHMP forms the foundation for the community service district’s long-term strategy to reduce disaster losses by breaking the repeated cycle of disaster damage and reconstruction.
Additionally, jurisdictions with a FEMA-approved LHMP are eligible to apply for both pre- and post-disaster mitigation grant funding.
Community members are invited. The district encourages the public and all interested stakeholders to attend and participate in the upcoming project kickoff meetings.
An initial public meeting will explain the LHMP development process, the benefits of hazard mitigation planning and how you can be involved.
In addition, Hazard Mitigation Planning Committee meetings to develop the plan with the district and other stakeholders are open to the public.
Community members are urged to select the time that works best for them.
Hazard Mitigation Planning Committee Tuesday, March 26: 1 to 4 p.m. Hidden Valley Lake Community Services District Conference Room, Hidden Valley Lake
Public meeting Tuesday, March 26: 5:30 to 7 p.m. Hidden Valley Lake Community Services District Conference Room, Hidden Valley Lake
You may also contact Hannah Davidson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Alyssa Gordon at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or at 707-987-9201.
To speak on an agenda item, access the meeting remotely here; the meeting ID is 814 1135 4347, pass code is 847985.
To join by phone, dial 1-669-444-9171; for one tap mobile, 16694449171,,81411354347#,,,,*847985#.
Comments can be submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. To give the city clerk adequate time to print out comments for consideration at the meeting, please submit written comments before 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13.
On the agenda is the annual progress report for the housing element.
Commissioners also will discuss the planning department and commission goals for this year.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has released his catastrophe modeling regulation that he said will help restore options for all Californians, the latest phase of his Sustainable Insurance Strategy to safeguard the integrity of the state’s insurance market.
The Department of Insurance will hold a public workshop on April 23 to take input before starting the process of submitting the regulation for approval by the Office of Administrative Law.
Thursday’s announcement keeps California on track for a December 2024 goal of enacting the state’s largest insurance reform in over 30 years.
It follows Commissioner Lara’s release last month of a new regulation to improve oversight and handling of insurance rate filings.
Catastrophic insurance losses are defined as those that are larger and affect multiple policyholders as a result of a severe event, such as a wildfire affecting dozens of homes compared to a common house fire.
For more than 30 years, California regulations have allowed insurance companies to apply a catastrophe factor to insurance rates based on historical wildfire losses.
These outdated rules have contributed to rate spikes and balloon premiums following major wildfire disasters without fully accounting for the growing risk caused by climate change or risk mitigation measures taken by communities or regionally, as a result of local, state, and federal investments.
Currently, the Department of Insurance allows the use of catastrophe models for earthquake losses and fire following earthquakes.
The proposed regulation expands the allowable use of catastrophe models to include wildfire, terrorism, and flood lines for homeowners and commercial insurance lines.
Commissioner Lara’s strategy addresses a major limitation of Proposition 103, passed by voters in 1988.
Under that law, insurance companies are free to propose rates at any level needed to cover future losses but, unlike public utilities, are not required to cover all residents.
With the combination of climate-intensified disasters, rising costs of repair and rebuilding, and global economic forces, major companies have increased rates while pulling back from higher-risk properties where the FAIR Plan is now the only option.
“My Sustainable Insurance Strategy is intended to address decades-long neglected issues. Under outdated rules, the growth of climate-driven mega fires has supercharged insurance costs for many Californians while making insurance harder to find,” said Commissioner Lara about the second in a series of a proposed regulatory changes where he is seeking public comment and review. “We can no longer look solely to the past as a guide to the future. My strategy will help modernize our marketplace, restoring options for consumers while safeguarding the independent, transparent review of rate filings by Department of Insurance experts, which is a bedrock principle of California law.”
Commissioner Lara said his proposed regulation will have major benefits for Californians in the form of:
More reliable rates: Insurance consumers will have more stable costs than under current regulations, which have resulted in sudden and steep increases for those at higher risk of wildfire.
Greater availability of insurance: Insurance companies will increase their writing because they can better anticipate future losses, rather than making abrupt decisions to non-renew higher-risk policyholders, pause writing, or rapidly increase rates.
Stronger oversight: The Department of Insurance will have strong public oversight of modeling, which is already being widely used by insurance companies outside of rate-making and across the nation. The Department will have access to models and build expertise, so California can continue to lead on consumer protection.
Safer communities: Catastrophe models can capture efforts taken by federal, state, and local governments, property owners, communities and utility companies to mitigate the exposure of communities to catastrophic events — encouraging and rewarding those efforts.
The regulation corrects a major shortfall of using historical data, which fails to account for wildfire mitigation. The regulation specifies that any model must incorporate the best available scientific information on risk mitigation at the property, community, and landscape scales, including risk mitigation initiated by local and regional utility companies. This forward-looking change will also enhance a recent regulation that Commissioner Lara spearheaded and now enforces, requiring wildfire safety discounts for homeowners and businesses and aligning with record investments in wildfire mitigation by Governor Newsom and the California Legislature.
The regulation complies with California’s strong consumer protection laws, which requires that anytime an insurance company seeks to change its rates, it must provide a complete rate application with all information that the Insurance Commissioner requires for review.
The proposed regulation creates a new process for review of models by a panel of experts overseen by the Department of Insurance — before insurance companies can use them in a rate filing and meet the stringent transparency requirements under Proposition 103.
The panel would evaluate the appropriateness and soundness of each model and a Department of Insurance official would determine what information about the model must be included in rate applications. Any member of the public can participate in this review.
The Department of Insurance will hold a public workshop to take input on the proposed regulation on April 23, at 2 p.m.
The COVID vaccine is safe to administer during pregnancy, reports UC San Francisco in an important finding on the safety of the vaccine in infants — despite widespread fear and misinformation.
The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is the first scientific inquiry into whether infants are at increased risk of neurodevelopmental impairments as a result of maternal vaccination.
The landmark study of more than 2,200 infants from across the country found that in utero exposure to the vaccine caused no abnormal delays when the infants were tested at 12 months and again at 18 months.
“This is a very reassuring finding — pregnant women have been facing unanswered questions around COVID vaccinations for several years,” said first author Eleni Jaswa, MD, MSc, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist at UCSF Health, noting the investigation started in April 2020. She is also an assistant professor in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences.
First meaningful evidence of maternal vaccination safety during pregnancy
Although pregnant women are considered at increased risk of severe illness with COVID-19, some chose not to get the COVID vaccine due to safety concerns around potential risks to their unborn children.
Some 34% of the participants in the study were vaccinated in the first trimester, about 45% in the second trimester, and nearly 21% in the third trimester. They were asked to complete a 30-item questionnaire assessing whether their infants performed expected milestones.
After adjusting for such factors as maternal age, race, ethnicity, education, income and maternal depression, the researchers found no difference in the risk of infant neurodevelopment at either 12 months or 18 months. They noted an increased risk of delay among male infants at 12 months but the difference was not observed at 18 months.
The study is ongoing.
“Understandably, there’s been concern about the potential impact of maternal vaccination on offspring,” said senior author Heather Huddleston, MD, a UCSF Health reproductive endocrinologist and director of the UCSF Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Clinic, or PCOS.
“Despite early safety data as well as recommendations from physicians and health organizations, vaccine hesitancy is still preventing universal use,” she said. “To this day, misinformation continues to abound. People are concerned about such issues as brain development and conditions like autism in children. This is the first meaningful evidence into the safety of vaccination from the standpoint of early offspring neurodevelopment.”
Co-authors: All from UCSF, the paper’s co-authors are Marcelle Cedars, MD; Karla Lindquist, PhD; Somer Bishop, PhD; Young-Shin Kim, MD, MPH, PhD; Amy Kaing, MD; Mary Prahl, MD; Stephanie Gaw, MD, PhD; Jamie Corley, BS; Elena Hoskin, MS; Yoon Jae Cho, MD; and Elizabeth Rogers, MD.
Elizabeth Fernandez writes for the University of California, San Francisco.
If you ask American voters what their top issues are, most will point to kitchen-table issues like the economy, inflation, crime, health care or education.
Fewer than 5% of respondents in 2023 and 2024 Gallup surveys said that climate change was the most important problem facing the country.
Despite this, research that I conducted with my colleages suggests that concern about climate change has had a significant effect on voters’ choices in the past two presidential elections. Climate change opinions may even have had a large enough effect to change the 2020 election outcome in President Joe Biden’s favor. This was the conclusion of an analysis of polling data that we published on Jan. 17, 2024, through the University of Colorado’s Center for Social and Environmental Futures.
What explains these results, and what effect might climate change have on the 2024 election?
Measuring climate change’s effect on elections
We used 2016 and 2020 survey data from the nonpartisan organization Voter Study Group to analyze the relationships between thousands of voters’ presidential picks in the past two elections with their demographics and their opinions on 22 different issues, including climate change.
The survey asked voters to rate climate change’s importance with four options: “unimportant,” “not very important,” “somewhat important” or “very important.”
In 2020, 67% of voters rated climate change as “somewhat important” or “very important,” up from 62% in 2016. Of these voters rating climate change as important, 77% supported Biden in 2020, up from 69% who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. This suggests that climate change opinion has been providing the Democrats with a growing electoral advantage.
Using two different statistical models, we estimated that climate change opinion could have shifted the 2020 national popular vote margin (Democratic vote share minus Republican vote share) by 3% or more toward Biden. Using an Electoral College model, we estimated that a 3% shift would have been large enough to change the election outcome in his favor.
These patterns echo the results of a November 2023 poll. This poll found that more voters trust the Democrats’ approach to climate change, compared to Republicans’ approach to the issue.
What might explain the effect of climate change on voting
So, if most voters – even Democrats – do not rank climate change as their top issue, how could climate change opinion have tipped the 2020 presidential election?
Our analysis could not answer this question directly, but here are three educated guesses:
First, recent presidential elections have been extremely close. This means that climate change opinion would not need to have a very large effect on voting to change election outcomes. In 2020, Biden won Georgia by about 10,000 votes – 0.2% of the votes cast – and he won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes, 0.6% of votes cast.
Second, candidates who deny that climate change is real or a problem might turn off some moderate swing voters, even if climate change was not those voters’ top issue. The scientific evidence for climate change being real is so strong that if a candidate were to deny the basic science of climate change, some moderate voters might wonder whether to trust that candidate in general.
Third, some voters may be starting to see the connections between climate change and the kitchen-table issues that they consider to be higher priorities than climate change. For example, there is strong evidence that climate change affects health, national security, the economy and immigration patterns in the U.S. and around the world.
Where the candidates stand
Biden and former President Donald Trump have very different records on climate change and approaches to the environment.
On the other hand, the U.S. has also become the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, and the largest exporter of natural gas, during Biden’s term.
In the current campaign, Trump has promised to eliminate subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles, to increase domestic fossil fuel production and to roll back environmental regulations. In practice, some of these efforts could face opposition from congressional Republicans, in addition to Democrats.
Nonetheless, doing something about climate change remains much more popular than doing nothing. For example, a November 2023 Yale survey found 57% of voters would prefer a candidate who supports action on global warming over a candidate who opposes action.
What this means for 2024
Our study found that between the 2016 and the 2020 presidential elections, climate change became increasingly important to voters, and the importance voters assign to climate change became increasingly predictive of voting for the Democrats. If these trends continue, then climate change could provide the Democrats with an even larger electoral advantage in 2024.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the Democrats will win the 2024 election. For example, our study estimated that climate change gave the Democrats an advantage in 2016, and yet Trump still won that election because of other issues. Immigration is currently the top issue for a plurality of voters, and recent national polls suggest that Trump currently leads the 2024 presidential race over Biden.
Nonetheless, if the election were held today, the totality of evidence suggests that most voters would prefer a climate-conscious candidate, and that most climate-conscious voters currently prefer a Democrat.