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Why Republican Governance Sucks, Part 10: Vote Democratic for a Healthier Environment [1]

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Date: 2025-03-03

In previous entries in this series, I’ve documented many ways in which blue states (those voting Democratic in all or nearly all of the the Presidential elections over the last 25 years, or having predominantly Democratic governors and legislatures) perform better than red states (those voting Republican at the presidential or state level) on may dimensions of well-being. Health. Wages and unemployment. Murder rates. Swing states, perhaps fittingly, tend to be scattered across the best and worst of these outcomes. In my previous diaries, we’ve seen the importance of voting Democratic for:

Protecting mothers and infants

Longer lives

Better education

Better wages

Less crime

Fewer gun deaths

More workers’ rights

More women's rights

More LGBTQ rights

Today, let’s take a look at the environment. Environmental protection has long been regarded as a “lefty” cause, though even Republicans have long since by and large publicly acknowledged the need for clean air and water protections. Maybe that’s because a healthy environment is something that most Americans like — in fact, for the past 25 years, Americans have been more than twice as likely to say that the government is doing too little to protect the environment, not too much (see Part 6 of this link). At the same time, environmental quality is impacted by both built and natural environment variables that are not directly under state or federal policy control (such as wind patterns and population density). So strength and enforcement of environmental protections do not always offset these other factors.

Once again, we’ll use a composite measure, this time from U.S. News and World Report’s 2024 rankings of “best states.” The environmental rankings are based on Environmental Protection Agency data reported mostly in 2021 and 2022. There were two dimensions: pollution (based on toxic chemical exposure and long-term chronic health risks associated with pollution) and air and water quality (based on bad Air Quality Index days and drinking water violations). The tables below are based on overall rankings; you can navigate to the link for seprate pollution nd air-water rankings and more details on methodology.

Without further ado:

Top 10 States, Environmental Quality

Rank State 1 Hawaii 2 Minnesota 3 Rhode Island 4 South Dakota 5 New York 6 Maryland 7 Massachusetts 8 New Hampshire 9 Nebraska 10 Vermont

8 blue states, 2 red.

Worst 10 States, Environmental Quality

rank state 50 Indiana 49 Louisiana 48 Nevada 47 Alabama 46 Utah 45 Texas 44 Alaska 43 Delaware 42 Arizona 41 Ohio

7 red states, 1 blue, 2 swing states (NV and AZ). Our takeaway motto: Vote Democratic for a better environment!

As we’ve seen in other measures, there is no right line separating blue and red states in environmental quality; some red states rank quite (like SD) and some blue states quite low (DE). But the same trend we’ve seen on every other measure of well-being is there: blue states simply do better.

This will be my last entry in this series for now. If there’s one point that I hope all of these diaries demonstrate, it’s this: Democrats have a compelling story to tell about how their policies and governance benefit everyone. That message doesn’t always get out, and it’s not always the fault of poor messaging by Democrats: many Republican voters, and especially the MAGA variety, live in information bubbles of fear, grievance, and resentment. They do not see news on the good things that Democrats accomplish for their states or the U.S., but they do hear plenty of manipulative and dishonest propaganda about how Democrats are terrible (corrupt, immoral, or at best incompetent) along with stereotypes and fearmongering to convince them that minorities and immigrants are criminals and dangerous. Self-selection into conservative- or MAGA-dominated friendship groups, neighborhoods, and states reinforces those information bubbles and the worldview they maintain. I don’t have any easy answers for this — but if communication channels can be developed that spread accurate information about how their lives benefit from liberal/progressive policies (your children are healthier; your water is cleaner; you have more rights at your jobs; and on and on) that surely has an impact. Maybe this has to come more through new media channels (podcasts, social media influencers, whatever) and less through legacy media that now reaches smaller and smaller proportions of the electorate than it once did. I also hope it’s reassuring to know that despite everything negative occurring in our politics and nation, Democratic leadership at the state level has built better lives in many ways for their residents.

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