New polls released by the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) and the Advanced Energy Economy Ohio Institute show that voters in Colorado, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia – all states that were critical in deciding the outcome of the presidential election – support renewable energy.
Notably, these states – especially Colorado and Iowa – are home to an established wind energy supply chain.
The poll was conducted the day after the election, following months of anti-renewables campaign rhetoric, ACORE notes. The polls confirm that energy was an important factor in many voters' decision for president – on par with foreign policy and more so than abortion. A majority of voters in these four swing states indicated that energy impacted their vote: 66% in Colorado, 60% in Virginia, 58% in Iowa and 57% in Ohio.
These same voters want to see cleaner energy encouraged in their state: They ranked solar, wind and natural gas higher than all other energy sources. And, going forward, these swing-state voters are significantly more supportive of candidates who advocate shifting to cleaner energy sources (Iowa: 80%, Colorado: 75%, Virginia: 72%, Ohio: 70%).
Majorities in all four states support continued government investment in clean energy (Iowa: 77%, Virginia: 76%, Ohio: 75%, Colorado: 72%) and requirements for utilities to increase the use of renewable energy (Iowa: 76%, Colorado: 70%, Virginia: 69%, Ohio: 67%).
The bipartisan research team of Public Opinion Strategies and Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates conducted 400 interviews on Nov. 7 with voters in Colorado, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia who cast ballots in the Nov. 6 presidential election. Interviews were conducted on landline and wireless phones. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 4.9%; margins of error for subgroups within the sample will be higher.
More details on the poll results can be found here.
