The 2026 Election Gives Winners a Mandate to Act Big on Climate

Where does Tuesday night’s historic election leave the climate movement? The answer is on the cusp of a huge opportunity—if we know how to seize it. Two of the issues that voters cared about most in this election—energy prices and corruption—present climate advocates with the perfect framework within which to push exactly the sort of bold agenda we need for this moment in the climate fight. Let’s take energy first. Above all else, this was a gas prices election.

It’s hard to imagine the sort of Democratic blowout we saw last night if gas and diesel prices weren’t the highest they’ve ever been for any election day in US history. The same is true for electricity bills. While not as mediagenic as the price ticking up on the pump, utility bills were top of mind for voters. No surprise considering the impact that they have on a family’s bottom line: it’s easier to cut back on miles driven than the need to light and heat your home.

From utility reform, to new investments in public transit, to rapidly scaling up renewables, Democrats have a mandate to roll out a historic clean energy package that will cut costs and pollution at the same time.In response, Democrats up and down the ballot made energy affordability a core campaign issue. On Tuesday, voters rewarded them for it. In election after election, Democrats who spoke clearly and passionately about the need to drive down rates, hold big utilities accountable, and build more clean energy won overwhelmingly.

The same was true for energy cost-related ballot initiatives, like in Michigan, where over 80% of voters supported an initiative to ban their utility from making political donations that many rightfully saw as bribes for politicians to keep rates high. Down ballot, Democrats also won important seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, the Arizona Corporation Commission, and the Texas Railroad Commission, which all have crucial decision-making roles in those states when it comes to prioritizing renewables over fossil fuels.

These wins set up Democrats at all levels to embrace the most ambitious and sweeping clean energy affordability agenda possible. Voters are demanding that politicians drive down rates, and building more clean energy is the fastest and cheapest way to do it. From utility reform, to new investments in public transit, to rapidly scaling up renewables, Democrats have a mandate to roll out a historic clean energy package that will cut costs and pollution at the same time.

But voters want more than just affordability—they want accountability. Corruption emerged as a major issue in this election, from President Donald Trump and his family’s self-dealing, to Big Tech’s backroom deals to push AI data centers, to Big Oil’s profiteering off the War in Iran and invasion of Venezuela. People are rightfully furious at a system that they see enriching a small circle of billionaires (including all those Big Oil CEOs) at the public’s expense.

That anger is the rocket fuel Democrats need to pursue an aggressive agenda that goes after Big Tech, Big Oil, and other corporate polluters. In Congress, that should look like an aggressive oversight agenda to investigate the corrupt dealings between the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry. From the sale of our public lands, to the attack on our environmental regulations, to the outrageous profits Big Oil and Trump personally has raked in because of the war in Iran, there is plenty for Democratic-led committees to sink their teeth into.

But oversight isn’t enough. Democrats will also have to show that they’re willing to take these corporations head on. That means doing everything they can to stop the massive build-out of AI data centers, which have become the largest new source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, along with their other harms. It also means taking immediate action to rein in the massive profiteering oil companies are engaged in right now—just days before the election, Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies announced they’d made a combined $56.2 billion in the last quarter, or $611 million every day.

When the new Congress convenes in January, they should pass a permanent Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax that would send the majority of those profits back to the public and ensure prices aren’t allowed to spike like this again. Voters’ desire for affordability and accountability also provides fertile ground for politicians of all stripes to throw their support behind the growing Make Polluters Pay campaign, which is demanding fossil fuel companies pay their fair share for growing climate damages.

As Tuesday’s election was taking place, people across the Southwest were still grappling with the impacts of record-breaking flooding, which has wiped away bridges and homes across the region and made getting out to vote that much harder. The costs of the damage in New Mexico alone could be as high as $300 million. State leaders should fully embrace the push for climate superfund bills, like those passed in Vermont and New York, which would force the oil and gas companies most responsible for the climate crisis to pay into funds to offset the costs of climate disasters and invest in resiliency, as well as squash any attempts by the industry to pass “big oil immunity” bills which would grant them a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Above all else, we need our politicians to act—and act big. Now isn’t the time for small thinking or convoluted triangulation and half measures. Over the last two years, we’ve witnessed the most corrupt, pro-fossil fuel, anti-environmental administration in US history. Last night, voters overwhelmingly rejected those priorities and demanded a total system reset. Our job now is to do everything we can as a climate movement to help deliver on that vision in the most sweeping way possible.

For a new generation of Democrats looking to make a name for themselves as champions of working people, this is an obvious place to start. From making polluters pay to getting every American access to cheap, clean energy, we know what needs to be done in the years ahead—it’s time to go out and fight for it.