“Climate change” wasn’t exactly a prominent topic across 2026 midterm campaigns. But post-election, it’s clear that the climate still won big, and that means more climate action could be right around the corner.
Donald Trump spent the first two years of his second term as president heavily attacking the environment, and the country’s climate efforts. And yet opposing candidates were warned not to focus on the topic.
Addressing “climate change” was “not a priority” for battleground voters, the SearchLight Institute, a think tank founded by Democratic strategist Adam Jantleson, warned last September .
Many listened to that advice: Out of all Democratic and Republican candidates in eight of the key states in the fight for Senate control (Alaska, Georgia, Maine, Iowa, Michigan, North Caroline, Ohio, Texas), only two mentioned “climate” on their campaign websites, the Guardian reported.
The two candidates, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and James Talarico in Texas, both won their bids for the Senate.
Even elected Democrats have embraced “climate hushing” recently. An Inside Climate News analysis of press releases issued by members of the House and Senate found that mentions of climate change plummeted since 2025.
Climate was (quietly) on the ballot
Still, climate change did appear in the midterms in tangential ways. Candidates railed against AI data centers and soaring energy bills, and many made connections between clean energy investment and lower utility costs.
And some candidates did outright embrace it. In Michigan, Democrat Will Lawrence, co-creator of the Sunrise Movement—a youth-led advocacy group that helped shape Joe Biden’s climate policies —beat an incumbent Republican, flipping a House seat.
The incoming Congress, then, is primed to take climate action. It’s a moment that mirrors 2018, when, out of the midterms during Trump’s first term, the Green New Deal emerged, says University of California, Santa Barbara climate and energy policy professor Leah Stokes.
Though critics attacked the Green New Deal, it garnered large public support , and ultimately influenced , and paved the way for , Biden’s landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act.
“There’s no reason to believe that we couldn’t see the activist energy around data centers transform into being about good-paying, clean energy jobs,” she says. “That vision of a Green New Deal that emerges in the 2018 midterms—it’s very similar to what we could see happening in the coming months.”
Affordable electricity bills are essential to climate solutions.
“If we don’t have cheap, clean electricity, we do not solve the climate crisis,” Stokes says.
So by addressing high energy costs and the impact of data centers, Congress will help make space for technology like heat pumps and electric vehicles that rely on that cheaper power.
And as for climate policies, clean energy tax credits could be an easy, quick win that also addresses affordability.
“The tax credits that Trump rolled back last summer, I think we could see them roll right back forward under the next Congress,” Stokes says.
It’s not unheard of for Republican presidents to push clean energy tax credits, particularly when oil prices are so high. In 1992, for example, Congress passed tax credits for wind energy under George H.W. Bush. In 2005, under George W. Bush, solar energy tax credits passed.
Despite the environmental destruction that Trump has unleashed so far, Stokes is hopeful about how things could switch after these midterm results. “Things can change quickly,” she says.
