Do the people care about the climate crisis? These voters say yes - but the polls do not

We sweated through the hottest year on record last year, and 2024 is threatening to be even worse. US wildfires destroyed more than 1.7 million acres in the first three months of 2024, already half of last year’s total, and forecasters expect an unprecedented number of Atlantic hurricanes.

Around 87 per cent of Americans say they have experienced at least one extreme weather event in the past five years — whether that’s drought, extreme heat, severe storms, wildfires or flooding. Three-quarters of adults believe the science that climate crisis is at least partly to blame, and the same percentage want the federal government to do something about it.

But when it comes to this year’s presidential election, the issue trails inflation, healthcare, immigration and jobs in the list of voter priorities.

It’s not difficult to explain why. For decades, climate change has been weaponized in politics and that have