Replication Data for: US Partisan Polarization on Climate Change: Can Stalemate Give Way to Opportunity?

Partisan polarization is a signature element of the US political landscape, and the
politics of climate change is no exception. Here we document the rise in polarization in
US climate politics and discuss its role in hampering national and state policy making
to address the climate change problem. We then turn to three developments taking
place in polarization’s shadow that may generate opportunities for meaningful action
on mitigation and adaptation. First, party division has recently been accompanied by
increased internal party cohesion on climate change, leaving the Democratic Party
more unified on the need to address the problem and more willing to bear the political
costs required to enact substantive mitigation policies. Second, even while state policy
making largely reflects the broader partisan divide, clean energy expansion is
underway in many Republican-dominated states. Finally, we show that the deleterious
effects of climate change are projected to ultimately fall more heavily on Republican
voters than on Democrats, scrambling the partisan politics of adaptation compared to
that of mitigation.