A quiet retreat is underway inside the Democratic Party. Climate change, once the rallying cry that powered the 2020 primary and fueled the Green New Deal, has been eclipsed this cycle by affordability, U.S. support for Israel and, above all, how to confront President Trump, according to the Associated Press.
The shift has a name now: 'climate hushing.' The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, has urged the party to stop mentioning climate change because it is not a priority for voters, per the report.
The Sunrise Movement, the left-wing group founded in 2017 to mobilize young voters on climate, switched its mission last fall to a broader mandate of fighting the Republican president. The group's executive director, Aru Shiney-Ajay, said the group announced in October that it was shifting to a broader fight against what it called 'fascism,' citing reports of federal agents infiltrating protest meetings during immigration raids in Minneapolis.
'It has felt less like people care less about climate and more like people are increasingly freaked out about other issues,' Shiney-Ajay said.
The Massachusetts Senate primary captures the trend. Incumbent Sen. Ed Markey, 80, still talks about sponsoring the Green New Deal, but his campaign has shifted focus toward other issues as he tries to fend off a challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton, 47, in Tuesday's primary.
'Six years ago, Green New Deal was every phrase out of Ed Markey's mouth every chance he got. That is not the case now,' said Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic strategist in Massachusetts. 'It's about who's best to fight. Period, full stop. Everything falls under that.'
McKenzie Wilson of Blue Rose Research, a Democratic data firm, said voters have called for sweeping changes in response to economic pressures, according to the AP report.
About 6 in 10 Democrats say climate change is 'a very big problem' for the country, per a Pew Research Center poll from April — roughly the same share as in 2016. Yet climate has repeatedly taken a back seat to inflation, health care affordability and the role of money in politics among Democratic voters' stated priorities.
Not every Democrat agrees with the retreat. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called the party's silence on climate a strategic 'blunder,' arguing the issue 'has moved from the science department into the economics department' as it hits home insurance and property values.
Scientists cited in the report say there is an increasing chance 2026 could be the hottest year on record, or close to it, as a strengthening El Nino spikes global temperatures. Trump has called climate change 'a hoax,' and his party has regularly scoffed at Democratic proposals like the Green New Deal, the report notes.
What the retreat reveals is a party recalibrating around the numbers that actually move voters. The Green New Deal was sold in 2020 as the price of admission to a livable future; six years later, its most prominent sponsor is talking about it less, not more, while his own party's data firms and think tanks point him toward affordability instead.
That is a market signal of its own. When grocery bills, insurance premiums and mortgage payments dominate a household's monthly ledger, voters have shown little appetite for messaging built on remaking the economy from the top down — whatever warnings a senator like Whitehouse offers about the political cost of staying quiet.
