How Bipartisan Support for the Green New Deal Disappeared in Four Months Abel Gustafson Yale Program on Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] Seth A. Rosenthal Yale Program on Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] Parrish Bergquist Yale Program on Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] Matthew T. Ballew Yale Program on Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] Matthew H. Goldberg Yale Program on Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] John E. Kotcher George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] Anthony Leiserowitz Yale Program on Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] Edward W. Maibach George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication ~ [email protected] Abstract The Green New Deal’s rapid rise from obscurity to prominence enabled us to measure naturally- occurring partisan polarization unfolding over time at a national level, as well as explore evidence for a possible causal mechanism. Here, we report findings from a sequence of two nationally-representative surveys of registered American voters that measured familiarity with and support for the Green New Deal (GND) shortly before and shortly after the issue entered the national spotlight. We find that the Time 1 to Time 2 increase in awareness of the GND was largest among conservative Republicans compared to other political segments. Compared to liberal Democrats, about twice as many conservative Republicans had heard “a lot” about the GND at Time 2. Among Republicans, higher familiarity at Time 2 is strongly associated with lower support. We also present evidence of a likely mechanism: a negative “Fox News Effect” among Republicans. The data indicate that Fox News viewing is a significant predictor of familiarity with the GND and of opposition to it, when controlling for likely alternate explanations. The negative effect of Fox News viewing on Republicans’ support is significantly stronger than the positive effect of MSNBC viewing on Democrats’ support. Presented at Waterlines: Confluence and Hope through Environmental Communication The Conference on Communication and Environment, Vancouver, Canada, June 17-21, 2019 https://theieca.org/coce2019 Page 2 of 12 How Bipartisan Support for the Green New Deal Disappeared in Four Months Climate change requires sustainability solutions that match the scale of the threat. In late 2018, one such large-scale solution entered the American political arena as a proposed set of policies called “The Green New Deal” (GND), propelled by a wave of grassroots activism and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). The policy framework of the GND is expansive, including but not limited to a transition to 100% clean, renewable electricity, “green” jobs and job-training guarantees, improvements in the sustainability of buildings and transportation infrastructure, clean air and water guarantees, and investments in “green” technology research and development (H.R. 109). In democratic societies, public opinion is a central determinant of the success of public policy. Many of the individual policy components of the GND had bipartisan support in 2018, such as a transition to 100% renewable energy and regulating CO2 as a pollutant (Ansolabehere & Konisky, 2014; Carlock, Mangan, & McElwee, 2018; Leiserowitz et al., 2018; 2019). However, public opinion on an unfamiliar issue (such as the GND) could become politically polarized if the public is exposed to cues that associate support or opposition with their respective partisan loyalties or ideological values (Bartells, 2002; Druckman, Peterson, & Slothuus, 2013; Taber & Lodge, 2006; Zaller, 1992). Some experiments have demonstrated “party over policy” effects such that people tend to favor a policy proposed by their own political party but reject the same policy if proposed by an opposing party (e.g., Cohen, 2003; Van Boven, Ehret, & Sherman, 2018). These experiments have demonstrated the ability to increase polarization by inducing partisan cues in artificial settings, and most surveys on media effects observe single time points. The present study observes these phenomena occurring in the real world with robust estimates of the national-level effects. The GND’s rapid rise from obscurity to prominence presented a natural-occurring opportunity to observe these effects. Therefore, we measured familiarity with and support for the GND in a nationally- representative survey of Americans in early December of 2018 (T1). At that time, the GND did not have yet widespread name recognition in the general public, and partisan framing by political and media elites had not yet permeated the national conversation. Then we repeated the same questions in a second nationally-representative survey in early April 2019 (T2) – four months after the initial measurement. Between these two time points, the GND was publicized extensively by various national media – including coverage of its grassroots activism, its intra- and inter-partisan controversies, its evolving policy framework, and of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez herself. For example, in the week following the February 7th release of the GND resolution, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News alone combined for 45 primetime segments discussing the GND (MacDonald, 2019a). In the week preceding the March 26th Senate vote on the GND resolution, those three news outlets combined for 41 primetime segments (MacDonald, 2019b). Here, we report findings from a sequence of two nationally-representative surveys of registered American voters (N1 = 966; N2 = 1,097) measuring public familiarity with and support for the GND shortly before and shortly after the issue entered popular political discourse (from November 28 to December 11, 2018 and from March 29 to April 9, 2019). Our findings describe the dramatic changes that occurred over four months at a national level. We also report how these changes varied significantly by political subgroups, and we present evidence of likely mechanism: a strong negative Presented at Waterlines: Confluence and Hope through Environmental Communication The Conference on Communication and Environment, Vancouver, Canada, June 17-21, 2019 https://theieca.org/coce2019 Page 3 of 12 “Fox News Effect” on Republicans’ support for the GND that persists after controlling for ideology, general news exposure, voting behavior, and education. Methods Sample and Data For each survey, the sample was obtained from GfK’s KnowledgePanel®, a nationally representative panel of U.S. adults (18+) drawn using probability sampling. KnowledgePanel members are recruited using a combination of methods including random digit dialing and address-based sampling that cover all U.S. residential phone numbers and addresses. All questionnaires were self-administered by respondents in a web-based environment. Those who wish to join the panel but do not have internet access are loaned computers and Internet access to enable participation. Dates of data collection for T1 were November 28 to December 11, 2018 and for T2 were from March 29 to April 9, 2019. This study uses only the registered voters (2018 N = 966; 2019 N = 1,097) from the full samples (2018 N = 1,114; 2019 N = 1,291). Measures Political party. Respondents were asked an initial question of “Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a…” with response options of “Republican,” “Democrat,” “Independent,” “Other,” and “No party/not interested in politics.” Those who responded “Independent” or “Other” were presented a follow-up question asking “Do you think of yourself as closer to the…” with response options of “Republican party,” “Democratic party,” and “Neither.” The registered voters that responded “Republican party” and “Democratic party” to the follow-up question were combined with those initially responding “Republican” and “Democrat,” respectively, to form the total Republican and Democrat groups used for analysis (2018 Democrats n = 466, 2018 Republicans n = 356; 2019 Democrats n = 475, 2019 Republicans n = 488). Political ideology. Political ideology was measured with a question asking “In general, do you think of yourself as…” with response options on a five-item scale of “Very liberal” (1), “Somewhat liberal” (2) “Moderate, middle of the road” (3), “Somewhat conservative” (4), and “Very conservative” (5). Political segments. For simplicity, Figures 1-2 combine the party and ideology variables to create four distinct groups: liberal Democrats (2018 n = 295; 2019 n = 264), moderate/conservative Democrats (2018 n = 168; 2019 n = 209), moderate/liberal Republicans (2018 n = 116; 2019 n = 165), and conservative Republicans (2018 n = 238; 2019 n = 320). Frequency of news media consumption. Respondents were asked “How often do you watch, listen to, or read content from the following?” with separate items of “The Fox News CABLE Channel,” “MSNBC,” “CNN,” “Local TV news,” “Your local newspaper (either in print or online)” and “The national nightly network news on CBS, ABC or NBC.” Response options were “Never” (1), “Every few weeks” (2), “Once a week” (3), “Every few days” (4), “Almost every day” (5), “Several times a day” (6), and “Many times a day” (7). Responses on the CNN, local TV news, local newspaper, and national nightly network news items were combined to form an index of frequency of mainstream news consumption (α = .66). Responses to the Fox News and MSNBC items were used to construct binary variables (0 = once per week or less; 1 = Presented at Waterlines: Confluence and Hope