Republican opposition could slow the push toward electric vehicles

On the campaign trail this election cycle, former President Donald Trump has indulged in a singular rant about electric boats and sharks. The story goes that a boat manufacturer complained to him about electric boats, and Trump wondered what would happen if the boat sank under the weight of the electric battery — Would passengers be electrocuted? What if there was a shark nearby, and they had to choose how to die? “I will take electrocution every single time,” he’s said, hinting at a long-held fear of sharks.

As nonsensical as it is, the rant hits on a common talking point among Republicans: ridiculing the rise of electric vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark economic and climate change legislation, offered a range of incentives for the production of electric vehicles and related infrastructure, and offered tax incentives to individuals who buy them, while administration rules earlier this year increased fuel efficiency requirements for car manufacturers. Both moves spurred sharp Republican opposition. “[T]he Biden administration is deciding for Americans which kinds of cars they are allowed to buy, rent, and drive,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, said in a statement in March.

This ongoing rift over electric vehicles hints at longer-standing differences between how the parties and their voters view climate change and the potential policy solutions for curbing greenhouse emissions. While many voters care about climate change and support some level of government action to address it, Democrats’ clean energy policies have come under harsh fire by Republicans. Their battles over the push toward electric vehicles also highlight the challenges in trying to shift attitudes around American cars, a fight that dovetails into the larger cultural divides that shape American politics.

Support for electric vehicles has declined

Transportation is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and since the infrastructures of many communities are built around personal vehicle use, encouraging the production and use of vehicles that don’t rely on gas is a low-hanging fruit for climate change policy. Indeed, a push to slowly phase out gas-powered vehicles in favor of electric ones has been a centerpiece of Biden’s energy policy and his pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Overall, Americans support the government doing something to tackle climate change. In a YouGov/The Economist survey from March, a plurality of Americans, 46 percent, said the government was not doing enough to address climate change, while 17 percent it was doing the right amount and 25 percent said it was doing too much. Sixty-three percent of Americans in a Pew Research Center survey from June said they supported the Biden administration’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, and 65 percent said they would prioritize expanding renewable energy production over expanding fossil fuel production. In a July poll by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation, strong bipartisan majorities of Americans — at least 80 percent overall — said the government should make it a “high priority” to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gasses and supported the existing individual tax credits for EV buyers, along with a broad range of other clean energy tax incentives. In that same survey, 7 in 10 also supported the Biden administration’s mandates on car manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency.

The administration’s more aggressive goals to transition the vehicle market toward EVs, though, are much less popular: Only 40 percent of Americans in the Pew survey supported the Biden administration rule aimed at making half of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. electric by 2032. In a March poll from Noble Predictive Insights/The Center Square (a conservative sponsor), half of likely voters thought the federal government should decrease proposed targets on new EV sales. Meanwhile, different question phrasings may uncover Americans’ conflicting feelings about Biden’s individual tax credit policies: In that same poll, just under half of likely voters agreed that “the government should help make [electric vehicles] affordable as soon as possible,” but more — almost two-thirds — agreed that “the government is pushing electric vehicles too hard” and “wasting taxpayer money on electric vehicle subsidies.”

And while EV sales have continued to climb in recent years, there are some signs that demand may be slowing. The Pew survey showed a decline in those who would seriously consider buying an electric vehicle: About 29 percent in the June survey said they would, down from 38 percent points in 2023 and a high of 42 percent in 2022. An April poll by Gallup similarly found that while more Americans now own EVs, fewer non-owners would consider buying one compared to last year. There are, not surprisingly, partisan divides beneath those numbers. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans in the Pew survey from June said they were unlikely to consider buying an electric vehicle, while 45 percent of Democrats said they would consider it.

But concerns over owning an electric vehicle are broad and bipartisan — 56 percent of Americans thought gas-powered cars are more reliable, including a plurality of Democrats, in the March YouGov/The Economist survey, and many are worried about their safety, maintenance costs and whether the country will build out the charging infrastructure needed to support them. (Though Republicans in these surveys were much more skeptical of the benefits of EVs on every score.) Americans are also worried about the price tag of electric vehicles, which Kelley Blue Book estimates cost about $8,000 more on average than gas-powered ones: 59 percent in an AP/NORC survey from April cited the high cost as a major reason they wouldn’t buy one.

Some voters have another cost in mind though — the potential impacts of an EV transition on the American automotive industry and its workers. It’s a particular concern in the swing state of Michigan, home to most major U.S. car companies. There, Trump has gone on the offense, spending nearly $1 million on an ad claiming that Harris wants to “end all gas-powered cars” and that auto industry layoffs have “already started.”

In a New York Times/Siena College poll of registered voters in Michigan, 56 percent strongly or somewhat opposed rules that would require auto manufacturers to make electric cars. (Numbers were similar in other manufacturing states surveyed, like Ohio and Wisconsin.) Polling about government support for individuals buying electric vehicles in Michigan is more mixed. Likely voters in Michigan disapproved of government incentives for buying the cars, 57 percent to 34 percent, in a Quinnipiac University Poll this month, with an overwhelming 91 percent of Republicans there opposed — though the University of Maryland poll, on the other hand, found support in Michigan for maintaining the Biden administration’s individual tax credit policies for EV purchases wasn’t far below the national mark of around 80 percent.

Electric vehicles are a symbol for broader rifts over economy, energy and climate policies

While Americans across the political spectrum support the idea of addressing climate change in theory, and Democrats traditionally have an advantage on the issue, it remains a lower-priority issue among most voters. Republicans have seemingly capitalized on this and repositioned the issue to their advantage, as they’ve pivoted from long-standing climate change denial toward attacks on specific policies that could address it. Since Biden’s election, his championing of pro-environmental policies, and Republicans’ staunch opposition to his actions, have helped make otherwise popular policies a partisan issue.

For example, support for renewable energy development declined sharply among Republicans during Biden’s presidency. In 2016, 87 percent of Republicans supported expanding solar power and 80 percent supported expanding wind, according to Pew. But over the past eight years, those numbers have dropped by more than 20 points, to 64 percent and 56 percent, respectively, in this year’s survey. A big part of this rise in opposition to widely popular initiatives seems to be driven by Republicans’ opposition to and messaging around Biden’s climate policies: In May 2020, the last year of Trump’s term, 65 percent of Republicans in Pew surveys said they would prioritize expanding renewable energy production over expanding fossil fuel production, but the number dropped steeply to only 47 percent in April 2021, at the beginning of Biden’s term.

For one, Trump has made “energy independence,” particularly through increasing oil drilling, a centerpiece of his economic policy and “America first” agenda. He has also blamed the Biden administration’s green policies for increased inflation and argued that increased drilling would bring prices down. The truth is that oil production has hit new records under Biden, but “drill baby, drill” remains a Republican rallying cry. Trump has railed against wind energy in particular, painted the Inflation Reduction Act as wasteful government spending, and called the Green New Deal — a broader suite of climate policies pushed by some Democrats — the “green new scam.”

Electric vehicles specifically have become an easy target among Democratic environmental policies because the topic touches on an issue that’s close to home for most Americans. Many American communities — whether rural or urban — were built around the use of cars. And changing people’s driving habits requires a cultural as well as a political shift.

It’s not surprising that Americans, and specifically Republicans, have become skeptical of specific environmental policy efforts that would encourage changes to their behavior. When it comes to personal choices about vehicle ownership, Americans have drifted toward larger trucks and SUVs, generally the least fuel-efficient vehicles on the market. So it makes sense that Republicans have tied their attacks on EVs into other conservative messaging about “preserving choice” in the face of Democratic “mandates” — and Democrats have struggled to parry.

“One of the core tenets of a conservative perspective in this country is limited government and individual choice,” said Alec Tyson, associate director of research at Pew. “And [encouraging EV purchases] is a policy that goes against those principles.”

Overall, Trump’s campaign seems hopeful that electric vehicles and skepticism about Biden’s climate policy could be enough of a wedge issue to drive voters away from Democrats in important states like Michigan. And as we’ve seen in changing public opinions about EVs, his messaging could matter regardless of the outcome: “It's not the only factor, but certainly when your elected leaders and the folks you look to for basic leadership in this country are critical of something like electric vehicles … that plays some role in shaping the public views,” Tyson said.

So while they are unlikely to be a major deciding factor for most voters in November, policies on electric vehicles and other clean energy initiatives are still on the ballot — and their future is certainly at stake. No Republicans voted for the Inflation Reduction Act when it passed in 2022, but if they win back Congress and the White House in November, they will face the question of whether to repeal or retain some of its policies — including green energy-related credits that have flowed into many of their communities and maintain popular support.

Cooper Burton contributed research.