ME College Republican Chairman: The GOP Can Win Young Voters by Leading on Climate
Young Republican voters support action on climate change
By Cody Porter, Chairman of the Maine Federation of College Republicans
In an op-ed published this weekend in the Bangor Daily News, the Chairman of the Maine College Republicans spotlights the GOP’s opportunity to lead—and win—on the issue of the environment.
“Politically, leading on climate is a generational opportunity for the GOP to win back young voters by solving one of their most important issues,” writes Chairman Cody Porter. “It is our way of preserving ‘the way life should be.”
Porter outlines his experiences as a GOP organizer on campus and how talking about conservative solutions to the climate challenge has resonated with young voters:
While climate change may be viewed by some as a single-party issue, the reality is quite different. More than half of Maine’s Republicans are in favor of climate action, and among young GOP voters generally, support for environmental solutions exceeds 80 percent.
These figures paint a compelling picture on their own. However, being a field organizer for the Maine GOP has taught me that changes in public opinion start at the grassroots level, and oftentimes, it is impossible to ascertain the whole story without listening to the actual voices on the ground. Well, over the past year, these conversations have told me everything else I needed to know.
At the University of Maine, our College Republicans chapter quadrupled in size during the 2020-21 academic year, while unprecedented circumstances caused steep declines in membership among other groups on campus. While a variety of factors were certainly at play, a key part of this engagement was highlighting to students how conservative principles can solve climate change — and more effectively than proposals that the left is offering.
In particular, Cody writes, the GOP should champion the Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends strategy:
The conservative solution we’ve focused on is the Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan: the free-market approach to curbing carbon emissions, and the most fair and effective tool in our country’s arsenal when it comes to protecting our environment. Rather than letting government bureaucrats pick winners and losers, the plan utilizes market incentives and gives businesses, big and small, the freedom to make their own decisions.
In addition, Baker-Shultz’s border carbon adjustment would level the playing field for our businesses and unleash America’s carbon advantage against foreign manufacturers, giving the U.S. a competitive edge over countries like China, Russia and India. What’s more, the wholesale nature of this market-driven approach would allow us to roll back unnecessary regulations while still delivering even better environmental protection.
In conversations with the leadership of other College Republicans chapters across the state, the support for this plan has been unanimous.
Ultimately, by championing an effective plan like Baker-Shultz, the GOP can ensure that free-market principles—not heavy-handed regulations—remains the heart of American leadership.
At the end of the day, a plan like Baker-Shultz is proof that we can make American policymaking work for people again, and that conservative principles should lead the way.