Not All Republicans Think Alike About Global Warming
The new Republican leaders in Congress have pledged to roll back the EPA’s proposed new regulations on coal-fired power plants - a key component of President Obama’s strategy to reduce global warming.
However, Republican voters are actually split in their views about climate change. A look at public opinion among Republicans over the past few years finds a more complex - and divided - Republican electorate.
For this study, we combined the results from six of our nationally-representative surveys over the past three years, which provided enough data for an in-depth analysis of the diversity of views about global warming within the Republican party.
We find that solid majorities of self-identified moderate and liberal Republicans - who comprise 30% of the party - think global warming is happening (62% and 68% respectively). By contrast, 38% of conservative Republicans think global warming is happening. At the extreme, Tea Party Republicans (17% of the party) are the most dismissive - only 29% think global warming is happening.