Americans often cite economic concerns as a top political issue, implying support for investments and programs that economically benefit themselves and their local communities. However, the politics of climate change complicate this idea: while Republican voters generally oppose climate investments and Democrats support them, our analysis finds that Republican voters actually live in communities that stand to benefit the most from these investments.

In this report, Climate Cabinet Education’s data team investigated this question by looking at the political lean of all state legislative districts compared to their potential for renewable energy. Additionally, we looked at the number of existing renewable energy infrastructure projects—specifically solar and wind energy— across the U.S.

Here’s what we found:

Overwhelmingly, rural districts across the middle of the country have the most solar and wind energy potential, as shown in Figures 1, 2, and 3. This is expected as rural areas have more land mass, thus greater sun radiation and area for wind. Rural districts in the middle of the country are also a key base of the Republican Party, as indicated by the average Republican-leaning partisan voter index (PVI) of >R+0 across midwestern statewide district averages from Illinois to Kansas to Ohio.

Despite this, members of the Republican Party have typically opposed investment into renewable energy. Just last year, Republicans voted against the Inflation Reduction Act that provided millions of federal dollars for climate projects in their own districts. Indeed, these rural middle-America districts are by and large represented by Republicans in state government. So the very districts with the most to gain from clean energy infrastructure projects are the districts least likely to have representatives that support them politically. In the country with the highest energy consumption per capita in the world, we need to be doing everything we can to support clean energy development, not hinder it.