Is the Green New Deal a Vote-Winner? Evidence from Spanish National Election Results

In response to the urgent need for climate change action, recent proposals from the US and European left have advocated a “Green New Deal” (GND), combining large-scale public investment into clean energy, transport and housing systems with progressive social and economic policies that would improve the lives of the working class. Advocates of GND-style policy programmes argue that they are likely to be much more politically popular than conventional climate policies recommended by neoclassical economists, such as carbon taxes, which are often unpopular. Yet, little is known about how GND-style policy programmes are likely to fare electorally. We hypothesise that they are likely to (re)unite educated, socially and environmentally progressive, urban voters with the traditional working class, increasing the vote share of left-wing parties. We test our hypothesis with the case of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), which won the general election in April 2019 on a GND-style, transición ecológica platform. The incumbent PSOE in 2018 negotiated deals within stakeholders in coalmining regions in which the regulated closure of the coalmining industry by 2020 was combined with national government investment in coal regions, worker retraining and social welfare assistance. Combining electoral census data at the municipality level and geo-coded data of coalmines slated for closure, we find that mining municipalities (those within a 10–15 km radius of those coalmines) have increased their PSOE support or switched their electoral support from a conservative right-wing party to the PSOE between the 2016 and 2019 general elections. Amid increasing polarisation over climate change and the rise of right and left populist parties, our paper provides evidence that combining state-driven climate action with a progressive socio-economic agenda can be a winning electoral strategy for more mainstream socialist and social-democratic parties.