This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Most Americans feel unease or alarm about the climate crisis and, in both red and blue states, want to know how political leaders are going to fix it. But in midterm election campaigns across the US, candidates have responded to this desire with near silence.

People in the US have this year endured a record hot summer as well as soaring costs, equating to roughly $2,000 per household, in extra energy and mortgage payments, due to the country’s dependence on a fossil fuel supply scrambled by Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran.

Yet the unfolding climate crisis, and the imperative to transition to cleaner, less volatile forms of energy, has been starkly absent on campaign trails before the midterms in three weeks’ time. Even among previously pro-green Democrats, 2026 has seen a widespread climate omertà.

“Look, I’m not going to defend the Green New Deal,” Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic US Senate candidate in Michigan, told Fox News in August, after previously campaigning for 100 percent renewable energy.

Jon Ossoff, seeking to retain his Senate seat in Georgia, has ditched mentions of the environment in favor of focusing on the Iran war and inflation. Meanwhile, James Talarico, another leading Democratic Senate hope who previously compared oil and gas to 1980s cassette tapes that are “not gonna last,” has struck a very different tone in this campaign.

“The climate hushers are dead wrong—voters want to hear more about climate change, not less.”

“I support our oil and gas industry,” Talarico, aiming for a first Democratic win in Texas in decades, said last month. “I had family members who worked in the industry. I went to public schools here in Texas funded by the oil and gas industry.”

Among all Democratic and Republican candidates in eight battleground states that will determine control of the Senate—Alaska, Georgia, Maine, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas—none mention “climate” on their campaign websites other than El-Sayed and Talarico.

This so-called “climate hushing,” however, is disconnected from what voters actually want, polling suggests. Three times as many voters in these eight swing states want politicians to spend more time talking about the climate crisis than those who want to hear less about it, a large survey from last month found, with thumping majorities in each state saying they are more likely to vote for a candidate who prioritizes a transition to clean energy.

“The climate hushers are dead wrong—voters want to hear more........

© Mother Jones