The climate activist avoiding the word ‘climate’
His new campaign launch video doesn't mention the word once
It wasn’t that long ago that Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate activist and former hedge fund manager from San Francisco, launched a major presidential campaign dedicated to fighting climate change. A self-proclaimed climate hawk who committed his time and many millions of dollars to climate change advocacy, Steyer jumped head-first into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary because — in his view — no other candidate had been willing to fight climate change with the urgency he deemed necessary.
Asked on the campaign trail what the eventual Democratic nominee would have to do to satisfy him as a climate change advocate, he said that whoever won would have to say that climate was their number one priority.
“They’d have to say they declare a state of emergency and use the emergency powers of the presidency. They’d have to say it’d be their lead question in foreign policy, because that’s the only way this is actually getting addressed.”
Steyer ended his 2020 primary campaign in February of that year. Now, he’s back and running to become the next governor of California — only this time he’s turning away from climate as his top priority and focusing on lowering energy costs and making sure corporations and wealthy people like him pay their fair share.
His new campaign launch video does not mention the words ‘climate change’ once.
How could it be that a lifelong climate hawk, one who ran for president with a singular focus on climate change, has suddenly become wary of messaging on the issue?
Steyer isn’t abandoning his beliefs or suggesting he won’t work to address climate change should he become governor. His agenda to lower energy prices could very likely reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support clean energy buildout, and advance the causes he has always cared about.
What he is doing is avoiding a phenomenon that we at Searchlight call ‘crowding out,’ where focusing on issues that voters do not prioritize themselves causes them to think —understandably — that you are not focused on issues that matter most to them.
Searchlight’s own polling and messaging research makes the case for issue prioritization quite clearly. In our survey, battleground voters said leaders should focus most on affordable prices (71%), followed by healthcare (55%), and jobs and wages (50%). However, when asked which top three issues they think the national Democratic Party is focused on, those battleground voters said Democrats were focused most on climate change (46%) — followed by LGBTQ+ issues (45%), and healthcare (45%).
Voters in battleground states like Arizona and Georgia do indeed reflect a broader challenge for the Democratic Party. Our results suggest candidates all over America — whether they run in the Golden State or the Granite State — must chart a different direction than the national Democratic brand by adopting issue prioritization.
Zohran Mamdani avoided crowding out in his race to become New York’s next mayor. He did so by using social media, relationships, rallies, and mass politics to advance his message on affordability. The result was clear: New York voters perceived Mamdani as prioritizing affordable housing and prices more than national Democrats.
Those same New Yorkers also said that the national Democratic Party prioritized climate change and LGBTQ+ issues more than Mamdani — a progressive socialist who we can assume wants to do more in either of those issue areas than the standard Democrat.
Realignment is the goal. It’s a healthy sign of progress within the Democratic coalition that a climate hawk like Tom Steyer is gearing up to run a race focused singularly on the issues that matter most to voters.
Candidates like Steyer, with significant records on issues like climate change or abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, can learn from this moment by embracing issue prioritization in their own races.
But issue prioritization doesn’t only matter for those candidates in singular races. If the Democratic Party becomes composed of leaders who run their races with a focus on the issues that matter most to the constituents they hope to represent, then over time the nationwide composition of the Democratic Party will improve, grow, and come to win national elections.
And those are exactly the kind of Democrats that can gain and wield the power to defeat Trump, improve people’s lives, and pass bold legislation through Congress.
 | A guest post by
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I see - you find a politician who is willing to compromise their beliefs just to get elected and you grasp that as validating your position that the Democratic Party must say or do whatever it takes to get elected? Don't you think that during Steyer's campaign someone will ask him why he's not discussing climate change? What should he say then? That he's simply cast aside his beliefs because he's now a realist? What about the next hard topic? No, he will be seen as what he is - a man without true convictions who is simply taking a purely transactional approach in order to gain power. This is not leadership, and frankly, the last thing the Democratic Party needs is another elitist billionaire who is far removed from any personal urgency about the problems Americans face. The Democratic Party needs - we all need - a communicator with a vision. Someone who can explain the hard issues like climate change, and proffer real workable solutions.