Over six years ago, Nathaniel Stinnett set out to collect “an army of environmental super voters” that will be able to influence US lawmakers at all levels of government to pass legislation to reduce emissions as effectively as the National Rifle Association dictates state gun laws.
The veteran campaign strategist’s Neighborhood Voter Project has contacted more than 8.7 million registered voters in 17 states who rarely vote, and has persuaded more than 1 million to pull the lever in every recent federal, state and local election since. And that’s only based on data that goes through 2021; The nonpartisan group’s voter files have not been updated to reflect turnout from last year’s midterm elections.
Stinnett’s organization isn’t resting on its laurels in 2023, even though it’s not a national election year.
“We don’t take odd years,” Stinnett said. “No one else mobilizes low-propensity voters in city council elections and library trustee elections. We take habit formation seriously, and the only way to get these good cumulative results is by paying attention to boring elections.
The next two states to develop are not dull: Louisiana and Nebraska.
“In Louisiana, it’s the home of ‘Cancer Alley’ and the underbelly of the fossil fuel industry,” Stinnett said, referring to the majority-Black industrial area with incredible rates of cancer and disease. “Every day, the fossil fuel industry is killing Americans with toxic air, toxic water and climate change. And the industry’s biggest killing field is Louisiana.
Bayou State voters directly elect public service commissioners who manage energy infrastructure. Later this year, they will elect a new governor in the flood-prone state with heavy oil drilling, gas refining and plastic production. And Stinnett’s group has identified 320,000 voters who ranked climate change and the environment as their top concern in the survey, but none of them voted or rarely voted since registration.
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In Nebraska, voters elect local regulators who oversee municipal utilities, decide who represents the county in important decisions about pipelines and other infrastructure, and even elect a single elector who determines the presidential candidate who wins one district in the Cornhusker State.
The Environmental Voter Project counted 66,000 green-leaning voters who usually skip the midterms, 42,000 of whom also missed the presidential election. Of the latter group, 16,000 live in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which has its own Electoral College vote and now lean more Republican after redistricting last year.
“Nebraska is a very interesting place to use the power of statewide voters to produce big wins from the local level all the way to the White House,” Stinnett said.
The organization has operations in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.
Since President Joe Biden signed the largest climate spending package in history into law last year, regulators at the state energy office, municipal utilities and local planning boards will determine how and where the funding goes.
“Local governments get broad authority over how they spend, and there’s a lot of implementation work to be done,” said Caroline Spears, executive director of the nonprofit Climate Cabinet, which funds candidates for down-regulation seats. pledge to prioritize serious decarbonization. “It is critical that we have good climate champions in our state legislative offices, public service commissions, utility boards and public power districts.”
Stinnett’s group uses consumer data and public election files to identify and target registered voters who care deeply about environmental issues but typically don’t vote. The Neighborhood Voter Project then blasts those voters in traditional ways: phone calls, door knocking by canvassers, mailers and digital ads.
“These are the people who are experiencing the worst of the fossil fuel industry. These are the people who have to live with poisoned air and poisoned water every day.”
– Nathaniel Stinnett, Neighborhood Voter Project
Group names aside, outreach messaging rarely mentions the environment. Instead, the Neighborhood Voter Project seeks good peer pressure, blaming non-voters for failing to exercise their rights or participate in elections chosen by their neighbors.
Stinnett’s updated files through 2021 show 1,030,000 voters contacted by his group are now “consistent voters who voted in the most recent federal, state and local elections,” he said. “He’s already a super voter.”
It is unlikely that the Neighborhood Voter Project can claim credit for activating all of these voters. But the organization has conducted a randomized controlled trial of a selection of individuals to study its own direct impact.
In Pennsylvania in 2020, one such study showed the group increased its target voter turnout by 1.2 percentage points.
“1.2 is a big number in this business,” Stinnett said. “Ask Donald Trump how big 1.2 is in Pennsylvania.”
In the US Senate runoff in Georgia that determined the party that holds the upper house that year, the Environmental Voters Project spent $550,000 – a small slice of the $1 billion pie spent on special elections – but drew almost a 1 percent increase in turnout.
Last year, nonprofit efforts boosted turnout in Alaska special election where Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola lose former Governor Sarah Palin by nearly 4 percentage points.
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“It’s easier to increase turnout when the baseline turnout is lower,” Stinnett said. “In cheaper elections where there is also less money, we often get better results.”
Another finding from six years ago to shepherd climate-conscious citizens to the polls: “The first registered voters in this neighborhood are disproportionately colored.”
That dynamic is “especially in Louisiana,” Stinnett said.
State vote files show there are about twice as many white registered voters (63%) as black (31%). Among low-income neighborhood voters, the Stinnett group has been identified, 59% black and only 33% white.
“It’s abundantly clear that there are low-voting and nonvoting Black environmentalists in Cancer Alley,” said Stinnett. “These are the people who are experiencing the worst of the fossil fuel industry. These are the people who have to live with poisoned air and poisoned water every day.”
In a December runoff election in which the Environmental Voters Project did not participate, activist Davante Lewis defeated incumbent Lambert Boissiere, a conservative Democrat from a dynastic political family accused of corruption. Spears, whose group supports Lewis, said the victory is a sign that the climate movement can “push forward” — and called Stinnett’s plan to expand the Environmental Voter Project to Louisiana and Nebraska “really exciting.”
Stinnett said the benefits of a strategy that has a longer horizon than just one election.
“The environmental movement has a lot of latent political power here,” he said. “This is both a tragedy and an opportunity.”