Battleground Ballots

Welcome to Inside Climate, a podcast from the staff of Inside Climate News. This year’s midterm elections are quickly approaching and control of Congress and state houses across the nation is up for grabs. Environmental issues could play a role in the outcome—they could bring more voters to the polls or change voting patterns in unexpectedly competitive races. Inside Climate News’ Iowa reporter, Anika Jane Beamer, and Nathaniel Stinnett of the Environmental Voter Project break down what we might see on the first Tuesday in November. 

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JAKE BOLSTER

The midterm election is just a few days away, but already millions of ballots have been cast.

NATHANIEL STINNETT: There are at least 43 competitive House races. And some analysts think that as many as 70 seats are in play.

Control of Congress is up for grabs in an election where races could be decided by thin margins. Groups are mobilizing every eligible voter to cast a ballot this fall.

NATHANIEL STINNETT: In the 2024 presidential election, we were able to identify 11.2 million registered voters who care deeply about climate and the environment who just stayed home and didn’t vote. And so we try to turn them from bad voters into good voters.

Climate and the environment may not be the top issue for a majority of voters nationwide, but it is front and center in the battleground state of Iowa.

ANIKA JANE BEAMER: Water is a huge issue amongst voters. Fifty percent of the state’s waterways are considered impaired. And it coincides with this cancer crisis, and people can’t help but wonder, what’s the relationship between this epidemic and the fact that our water is constantly just barely beneath the federal limit for nitrate?

Could Iowans flip their state blue in an election that is seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump and Republicans? That’s coming up next on Inside Climate.

Welcome to this midterm edition of Inside Climate, I’m your host, JAKE BOLSTER.

It’s impossible to turn on your TV these days and avoid political ads like this:

ANTI-ASHLEY HINSON AD SPOT: Ashley Hinson voted to roll back clean water protections, while taking $300,000 from corporations that polluted our water. As a mom, I do not understand how she voted for that. WinSenate is responsible for the content of this ad.

WinSenate, the group that produced this ad in Iowa, is a super PAC that raises money to support Democrats and oppose Republicans in Senate races. It is spending millions this election cycle to help Democrats flip four seats and take back the Senate.

Over in the house, all 435 seats are on the ballot in an election where control of the legislature could switch from Republican-held to a Democrat majority. Should this ‘blue wave’ occur, it would limit Donald Trump’s power in the remaining years of his presidency. 

This year, issues like affordability, the war in Iran and immigration have dominated headlines, but we haven’t heard much about climate and the environment from candidates. This is all happening at a time when voters are experiencing rising energy costs tied to fossil fuels and devastating weather events supercharged by climate change.

We’ll speak to NATHANIEL STINNETT, founder and executive director of the Environmental Voter Project, about its work to engage millions of registered voters who prioritize climate as their number one issue, but don’t vote. He’ll also share some data the organization uncovered around the current trend of “climate hushing.”

Then, we’ll travel to Iowa to speak to ICN’s Des Moines-based reporter ANIKA JANE BEAMER about key races in that battleground state, where clean water and diesel prices are two dominating topics on voters’ minds.

Battleground Ballots

JAKE BOLSTER 

Welcome to Inside Climate, Nathaniel. Thanks for joining us to talk about the midterm elections.

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Well, it’s my pleasure. I’m really excited for this.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Nathaniel is the founder and executive director of Environmental Voter Project. He founded the organization in 2015 after more than a decade of experience serving in senior leadership positions and campaign manager roles for U.S. Senate, congressional, state and mayoral campaigns. A former lawyer, he’s now based in Boston.

Nathaniel, there is a lot of interest in this year’s midterm elections, which is already underway in many states with early voting. Walk us through what’s at stake and the key races everyone’s watching.

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Yeah, so these are gonna be some really exciting midterms, Jake, I think far more exciting than people thought. In the Senate, there are seven states that are probably gonna decide whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Senate. And those states are Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio and Texas.

So a lot of states are in play for the U.S. Senate. As far as the gubernatorial elections, we’ve got 36 governors races this year. And the ones that I’m keeping watch on are states where we could have potential trifectas—when one party controls the governor’s mansion, the state House and the state Senate. And those races—in the Midwest, we’re looking at Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, either party could end up with a trifecta in those states. Out west, it’s Arizona and Nevada. And in Pennsylvania it’s pretty clear that Josh Shapiro’s going to win re-election. But what isn’t clear is whether Democrats will also win the state Senate and the state House in Pennsylvania. So those are the state races I’m watching.

And then finally, the U.S. House outlook. Right now, Republicans hold a five-seat advantage, 219 to 214, and then there are two vacancies. But there are at least 43 competitive House races, and some analysts think that as many as 70 seats are in play. So, come November, when all the counting is over, we could see Democrats with as much as an 80-seat majority, or we could see Republicans with a 10-seat advantage.

JAKE BOLSTER 

And what are the ramifications if Democrats do have this big blue wave and take full control of the legislative branch?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

So certainly it means that the White House, if they want to get anything done, has to compromise with Democrats. Moreover, when it comes to getting budgets passed and things like that, Democrats are really in the catbird seat and they’ve got an enormous amount of power. And then third of all, if there is anything that the executive branch is doing that Democrats in the House or the Senate don’t like, they can control holding hearings and holding those members of the administration responsible. And that’s a really big, loud bully pulpit.

JAKE BOLSTER

Let’s get into the issues then. So I think the big ones up top—affordability, the war in Iran, immigration, you know, these are all things that voters are thinking about. Where does the climate stand with the electorate?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

So the Environmental Voter Project just did polling of likely voters in eight battleground states that will decide the U.S. Senate, so those seven states that I mentioned plus North Carolina. And what we found was in those states, all of which are kind of red-leaning, 16 percent of voters listed climate change or pollution as one of their top three priorities. Now, to be clear, Jake, that does not place it in the top tier. It barely places it in the middle tier. But what I think is important to understand is when we drill down into those numbers, we found that 19 percent of independents listed climate change or pollution as a top priority, and 23 percent of Democrats did. It was only the 10 percent of Republicans that was really pulling down the average. So the fact that one out of every five independents in battleground states lists climate change as a top priority, I mean, it’s not as high a number as we need it to be in the climate movement, but it’s still pretty darn good.

The Environmental Voter Project is focused on building political power for the climate movement. What we try to do at EVP is we try to bypass the hardest, messiest part of politics, which is changing people’s opinions, and instead just find the people who are already with us, who just need their behavior changed. And so we try to turn them from bad voters into good voters. And that might sound like a very narrow niche, but for better or for worse, there are millions of these non-voting environmentalists just waiting to be activated.

JAKE BOLSTER 

How do you determine that they are going to care about the environment? What’s your criteria?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Yeah, so what we do is we build predictive models on voter files. This is how all sophisticated campaigns now target voters. They poll tens of thousands of people to isolate what their number one priority is. And if they say climate change or clean air or clean water, we put them in our bucket of people who are likely to list climate or the environment as the top priority. And then we work with data scientists to try to find other people like them.

JAKE BOLSTER 

And why are the people who care about the climate and have it as their number one issue not voting?

NATHANIEL STINNETT

People who are likely to prioritize climate and the environment are disproportionately young, they’re disproportionately people of color and they’re disproportionately lower income. So what do those three groups have in common? They all vote less often. And so part of what’s going on here is a mere demographic correlation. And to be clear, Jake, a lot of why they vote less often is due to voter suppression efforts. But it’s not the whole story, Jake. Because even when we look within just one of those demographic silos, so let’s say we only look at young people, well, even there, people who care more about the environment still vote less often than other young people. And what we think is going on there is we’ve done research that reveals that people understand the climate crisis in America in a weirdly non-political way. When most Americans think about the climate crisis, they care about it and they think about it all the time, but they understand it as, like, a personal consumer problem or a collection of, like, personal sins.

Americans think of the climate crisis as a suicide instead of a homicide. And so it never even occurs to them that political action is the best way to solve it. You know, we’re not gonna recycle ourselves into a new grid or a different transportation infrastructure. Those are systemic problems that require political solutions. And yeah, the fossil fuel industry has done a really good job of getting us to blame ourselves for maybe the largest systemic problem our species has ever faced, which is just crazy.

JAKE BOLSTER 

And in your work, can you go into some of the numbers behind what you found? How many people are there as, you know, non-voting environmentalists and how successful have you been to get them to vote?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Whether an environmentalist votes or doesn’t vote obviously depends on the election, right? So let’s talk about a few different big elections. In the 2024 presidential election, we were able to identify 11.2 million already registered voters who care deeply about climate and the environment who just stayed home and didn’t vote. 

JAKE BOLSTER 

Nationwide? 

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Nationwide, 11.2 million. But I’m glad you brought up nationwide, because presidential elections aren’t decided nationwide. So let’s talk about how that broke down in some certain states. In Georgia, a very, very important swing state—

JAKE BOLSTER

Very purple.

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Very purple, Donald Trump won Georgia by 115,000 votes in 2024. Over 462,000 environmentalists stayed home and didn’t cast ballots in Georgia. So the number of non-voting environmentalists in Georgia in 2024 was four times as large as the margin of victory in that state. And the same thing happened in Arizona and Nevada and Pennsylvania and North Carolina. I mean, name a swing state and the number of non-voting environmentalists in 2024 was larger than the margin of victory.

Now, if we fast forward to this year, in 2026, just in the 21 states where the Environmental Voter Project works, we think that over 4 million super environmentalists have never voted in a midterm election before. Now, we don’t know if they’re going to show up or not, and that’s part of what we’re trying to address at the Environmental Voter Project. We’re working 24 hours a day to get to the polls, but this is the amount of potential political power that the climate movement has sitting on the sidelines, and we need to get in the game.

JAKE BOLSTER 

So the Environmental Voter Project recently published a midterm report where it surveyed over 5,000 likely midterm voters across eight Senate battleground states. The survey was conducted Aug. 28 to Sept. 11 of this year. What stood out to you in that survey?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

People who think politicians shouldn’t be talking about climate change are wrong. What we found in these battleground states was that by a 3-to-1 ratio, likely voters said they wanted politicians to spend more time talking about climate change and pollution, not less. So 59 percent said, I want politicians to talk more about climate. Only 17 percent said they wanted less.

By comparison, Jake, 23 percent of those voters said, “Man, can politicians talk less about immigration and the border?” 28 percent said, “Can politicians talk less about abortion?” But the truth is, voters want to hear less about those issues than they want to hear about climate change.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Well, was there anything in your survey that sort of analyzed candidates who prioritize perhaps transitioning from fossil fuels and this kind of support they gained or lost as a result of that position?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Yeah, so I’m so glad you asked. What we found is that 4 out of every 5 battleground state voters are open to voting for someone who wants to transition away from fossil fuels. Then we looked at those 4 out of 5, the people who were gettable voters. And then we asked a much harder question. We said, OK, what if there was a candidate who said when they were elected, it would be a top priority to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. And so among those people who were open to voting for pro-climate candidates, 7 in 10 said, yeah, I would definitely be more likely to vote for a candidate like that. And so yes, the clean energy transition is a winner.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Well, it does sound sort of positive, but we’ve had such a mistrust with polling recently and it’s earned this reputation of being really fickle, rightly or wrongly. Why should we trust your data or the polling results we’re receiving from your contemporaries?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Yeah, it’s a really, really great question. And so the first is, I think you should take any public opinion data with a grain of salt. Now, we are very, very careful and we try to eliminate as many polling biases as possible in a way that a lot of other organizations don’t do. But what I can say is this: Polling of midterm voters has actually been not just very accurate recently, it has been historically accurate. The second thing I would say is don’t consume polls in a way that a lot of people might want you to consume them, which is to view them as a crystal ball. 

JAKE BOLSTER 

Right. Predictions for the future.

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Exactly. Polls are not predictions of the future. The way I like to think of them, Jake, is think of a poll like you think of your bathroom scale. Right? You step on your bathroom scale in the morning and even if it’s a really, really good, expensive, precise scale, it still ain’t gonna tell you what you’re gonna weigh two weeks from now, OK?

JAKE BOLSTER 

Right, right.

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

At best, it’s gonna tell you how much you weigh right then when you step on the scale. Well, that’s what a poll is. At best, it gives you an accurate snapshot of a particular moment in time. And if you’re really lucky, it doesn’t predict the future, but it does give you actionable intelligence to change the future.

And so what I would suggest to people is use data like this from our polls, use data from other polls, not as a predictor of what will happen, but rather as information that might help you understand what your neighbors and friends might be thinking and use that to change how they’re going to vote. Use it to change the future, not predict the future.

JAKE BOLSTER 

So we’re recording this conversation a few weeks before the midterms. What will you be doing between now and Nov. 3 with all this data you’ve collected?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Yeah, so in 21 states, the Environmental Voter Project is targeting 3.4 million registered voters who have never voted in a midterm before, yet we’re pretty sure they’re likely to list climate or the environment as their top priority. And what we’re gonna be doing is we’re working with thousands of volunteers to knock on these people’s doors, to call them on the phone, to send them postcards, and then we as a staff are also running direct mail and digital ad campaigns. And all of our messaging is just focused on getting them out the door and casting a ballot.

JAKE BOLSTER 

I think it should be said, I’m not sure we stated it at the top of this conversation, but the Environmental Voting Project is a nonpartisan group. You don’t take a position on candidates, is that right? 

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

That’s exactly right. So what we do at the Environmental Voter Project is we kind of take a demand side approach to the political marketplace. So rather than changing who we elect,

we just try to flood the zone with as many climate voters as possible, and then just rely on politicians to do what they do best, which is try really, really hard to win elections.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Is some of that early voter data available on your website right now?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Yes, so what we’re going to be doing is on a weekly basis, we’re going to be posting on our website the early voting data that we’re seeing coming in from the voters that we’re targeting so that we can track how we’re doing. But to be clear, early vote data, just like polls, is not necessarily predictive of the future. But what’s really good about early vote data is once we can see that one of our voting targets has already voted, we can then pull them out of our contact universe so that our volunteers don’t need to bother that person anymore. 

JAKE BOLSTER

And I have to ask, Nathaniel, so much of what you discussed about the data on non-voting environmentalists is contrary to this notion of climate hushing. Do campaigns, when they see your data, first of all, do you bring it to campaigns or do campaigns reach out to you? And when they do see it, how do they react?

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Yeah, so because we’re nonpartisan, we don’t talk to campaigns. Even if they reach out to us, we just say, you know, get lost. However, we certainly know that they eagerly read a lot of our data. I think some of them take it to heart, but some of them don’t.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Well, Nathaniel, thank you so much for laying all this out for us. We’re actually gonna head over to talk to our Iowa-based reporter to hear more about what’s been happening in the Hawkeye State. It sounds like that’s one of the places where you’ve had volunteers targeting non-voting environmentalists. There’s certainly a lot of environmental issues to talk about there, but thank you very much for joining us.

NATHANIEL STINNETT 

Well, it’s my pleasure, Jake, and yeah, Iowa is gonna be so, so important.

Water Issues Soak Iowa Races

JAKE BOLSTER 

I’m excited to welcome Anika Jane Beamer to the podcast, our environmental and climate change reporter based in Des Moines, Iowa.

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Hey.

JAKE BOLSTER 

So Anika Jane is a lifelong Midwestern resident. She spends a majority of her time reporting on water, soil, animal and agricultural issues. She was previously a reporting fellow at ICN after graduating from MIT with a master’s degree in science writing. And that fellowship turned into a full-time job with us. Anika Jane has been covering Iowa for ICN now for one-and-a-half years. 

So Iowa is a key battleground state in this year’s midterms. Can we start by hearing a little bit about the major races and their candidates? 

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Yeah, so there are kind of four key races that people are looking at nationally. There are three seats in the House of Representatives that are up for grabs. Two are pretty hotly contested. So that’s in Iowa’s 1st congressional district, between Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks and then Christina Bohannan, who’s actually challenged Miller-Meeks three times now already and came within 800 votes last time. So that’s an interesting toss up to watch. 

And then also in the 3rd congressional district, we have the Republican incumbent Zach Nunn, who’s facing Sarah Trone Garriott. That’s my district that I’m voting in, and that’s also classified as a toss-up right now. And then there’s a Senate race that’s also been interesting. That’s between Ashley Hinson, who was formerly in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Josh Turek, who’s an Iowa representative. They’re filling in Joni Ernst’s seat. She announced that she was stepping down after a few years to spend more time with family. Yeah, and that’s that’s also a toss-up, pretty contested. We’ve seen some polling leaning in favor of Turek, which would be a pretty big deal.

JAKE BOLSTER 

So why would that be a big deal for a Democrat to be in the lead in that race?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER

Well, it’s been a Republican-held seat for a while now, likewise with those two House of Representative seats. And it would position Iowa kind of uniquely as a bellwether here. Iowa has had a Republican-controlled state government since 2016. The last time we had a Democratic governor was 2011. And so it kind of seems like it’s shaping up to be a referendum on people’s satisfaction, both with state government but also with national government.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Right. There is also a governor’s race going on this year, correct? 

ANIKA JANE BEAMER

There is. Yeah, yet another exciting race. Yes, so that is Governor Kim Reynolds, who’s a Republican. She’s stepping down. And we have a pretty interesting race between the Democrat, Rob Sand, and the GOP candidate, Zach Lahn. Rob Sand is currently the state auditor, and he’s actually the only Democrat to hold an elected statewide office in Iowa right now. 

JAKE BOLSTER 

So this February, Anika Jane, you wrote a story about how water could be a pivotal issue for Iowa congressional candidates and it actually could tip the scale for control of the House. What’s going on with water in Iowa?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

I mean water is a huge issue amongst voters. We’re a super agricultural state. We’re the number one producer of corn and of hogs. What that has meant for the state is a lot of fertilizer, a lot of animal manure being applied as fertilizer onto the state’s farmland. And that runs into surface water. Some of that surface water becomes public drinking water sources downstream. And so, I mean, something like 50 percent of the state’s waterways that the DNR tests are considered impaired, almost all because of harmful algal blooms or just high nitrate levels. That’s all tied to the nutrient pollution issue. 

And people are really fed up. I mean they’re fed up with not having access to recreation, that’s one. But the much bigger issue is the clean drinking water component, and it coincides with this cancer crisis that Iowa was dealing with, where we have the second highest cancer rate in the nation. We’re one of just a few states with cancer rates getting worse, not better. And people can’t help but wonder, you know, what’s the relationship between this epidemic we’re seeing and the fact that our water is constantly just barely beneath the federal limit for nitrate. 

JAKE BOLSTER 

So since there are so many other issues impacting voters today, we’ve got the war in Iran, affordability. Where does water rank for Iowans and for candidates when it comes to those concerns?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

It is very high up there. It’s ranking beneath affordability, beneath healthcare, and above pretty much everything else. They’re clear electoral priorities and we’ve really seen that show up in the messaging of candidates. It’s interesting, water, and specifically the links between agriculture and water pollution, have historically been pretty taboo topics in Iowa politics. And we’ve seen Pandora’s box just completely open in the last year. And now if you’re not talking about it, you’re leaving stuff on the table.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Why is that? Why have they been taboo historically?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

I think it’s a combination. I think on the one hand, the scope of the conversation in-state has grown tremendously. And that’s the result of hyper-local journalists who have done a really good job, I think, documenting the costs, financial and otherwise, of the water issues. It’s the work of scientists. They’ve done some real landmark research in the last year, kind of trying to identify the causes of pollution, linking it to agricultural practices upstream. In the last year we’ve seen a lot of political and community organizing around it. So I think it’s made it much more costly for politicians not to address water.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Going back very quickly to the issue of water, can you tell me just a little bit more about some of the steps that water districts are taking to keep water safe?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Sure. In terms of water treatment, we have municipal water systems that are either running or looking at installing reverse osmosis filters. It’s really effective at removing nitrates, which in a lot of communities that’s not a huge concern. But in Iowa, where we have all this agriculturally derived nitrogen, that’s a huge issue. The federal government sets the limit at 10 milligrams per liter for nitrate in drinking water that the utility sends to customers. So they use these reverse osmosis filtration systems to keep water under that limit.

So I live in Des Moines. I get my water from Central Iowa Waterworks, which is the largest utility in the state. And when they created their reverse osmosis nitrate removal facility back in the early 2000s, it was state of the art. But those are expensive. And Iowa is largely small towns. And when you think about a small town looking at a $1 million price tag on a reverse osmosis system, that’s a lot to ask of ratepayers. These communities don’t have huge tax bases. 

JAKE BOLSTER 

What have the candidates running for office in Iowa done about clean drinking water?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Well, so the incumbent candidates in those 1st and 3rd districts have a kind of shaky track record here, and that could really hurt them in the election. Both Miller-Meeks and Nunn in districts 1 and 3 voted to pass the PERMIT Act this past year, which rolls back some Clean Water Act scope. It lessens the restrictions on certain agricultural stormwater runoff, pesticides. Meanwhile, polling that’s done amongst voters in their districts shows that 85 percent list clean water as, like, a huge electoral priority. So their track record isn’t super aligning with what their constituents say they want. And it’ll be interesting to see whether they pivot before, during or after the midterms.

JAKE BOLSTER 

And have any of the candidates specifically done something notable here?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Yeah, I mean water is one of the top sources of contention in the gubernatorial race. I think GOP candidate Zach Lahn has really made water, and more broadly health, the central pillar of his campaign. He’s MAHA-endorsed, which is a pretty big deal. What’s interesting is he’s talked a lot about Iowans and their right to clean water, their right to health, the cancer crisis.

Yeah, so I’ve seen a ton of political ads in the last few weeks at the YMCA. One of them that caught my attention was an attack ad on Rob Sand funded by the Zach Lahn campaign. You can take a look at that here. 

LAHN FOR GOVERNOR AD: Rob Sand is all over your TV. Ever wonder who pays for it? This company. The owners gave Sand $13 million, the most in Iowa history. The company makes the nitrate fertilizer poisoning Iowa’s rivers. They were repeatedly cited for illegal dumping. They were even caught polluting Iowa’s drinking water. They gave Rob Sand a fortune. What do you think they expect in return?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

And it has to be said that Rob Sand did respond to that video saying it’s riddled with lies. Some of the claims about $13 million from a single company just are blatantly false. But I think it shows how aware these politicians are of water as a concern for voters and how much they’re really using it as a talking point heading into the midterms.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Outside of reverse osmosis, what are some other solutions candidates have proposed to drinking water quality problems in Iowa?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Yeah, so if I mean if reverse osmosis is the Band-Aid, the real solution would be addressing the source of nutrients upstream. That means changing how we do agriculture, which is no small feat in Iowa. The big thing that can be done is cover crops. So when Iowa developed that nutrient reduction strategy 15 years ago, at the time scientists said we would need 60 percent of farmland to be planted with cover crops in the off season. So after harvest, farmers have harvested their corn, their soy. Cover crops is a crop of small grains that they’d plant basically to suck up any nutrients that are loose in the soil and hold them in place. And then as they die over the winter.

JAKE BOLSTER

And these would otherwise make their way into the drinking water? 

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Right, right, ’cause you basically have any fertilizer that hasn’t been used by the harvested crop sitting on the land. And you could imagine that snow, snow melt, rain is all gonna eventually flush that into surface waters.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Right. OK. So planting cover crops, where does that get us?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

If we get 60 percent coverage with cover crops, that gets us closer to our goals of nutrient reduction. It’s not all. It would have to be coupled with less nitrogen going on the land in the first place. So that means limiting our approach to fertilizer, being really careful about when and how we’re applying fertilizer. You know, certain weather conditions and soil temperatures make it more likely for nitrogen runoff to occur. This also can be coupled with stuff like just taking land out of production.

Iowa used to be 33 percent wetlands, now it’s like 0.1 percent. So there’s an argument to be made for agricultural land that isn’t as productive simply being restored to wetlands. That is something Rob Sand has been vocal about in his campaign, is just increasing wetlands. They act as natural filters and they mean less land to be fertilized in the first place.

JAKE BOLSTER

I want to pivot now to one of the other issues affecting farmers, and that’s diesel. How has the war in Iran and the cost of diesel impacted Iowan farmers?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

It’s had a horrible impact on Iowa farmers. And I think between this water quality conversation where farmers feel like they’re getting some of the blame and the cost of diesel, they’re kind of at a breaking point. I think they really feel like they’re being kicked while they’re down right now. It’s like peak harvest time. We’ve been delayed a few weeks because of rain. But this is when farmers are out in the field making lots of passes, going through hundreds of gallons of diesel a day. And diesel is like $3 more expensive than it was this time last year. That is then also coupled with high input prices on fertilizer and seeds. It’s already a more expensive gig. 

JAKE BOLSTER 

And there’s been talk of a pause of diesel exports. Has that resonated with Iowan farmers?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Yeah, I mean, pretty much all Iowa politicians, both those currently in elected office and those campaigning, have proposed a short-term pause on U.S. diesel exports. The problem is that would drive up prices internationally, and that inflation would eventually come back to bite us in the butt. Would that get farmers through these few weeks of harvest with lower diesel costs? Potentially.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Well, so, then I’m guessing and correct me if I’m wrong here, but one of the other things that farmers could turn to would be ethanol. 

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Kind of. So farm equipment can’t operate on ethanol, but ethanol is a major market for a lot of Iowa agricultural products. So something like 60 percent of corn we grow is going to ethanol.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Well I guess I’m thinking of high diesel prices and also high gas prices here right now. Is that, are the prices at the pump affecting people and is ethanol part of that?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Absolutely. And Iowa politicians know that and they’re really turning to ethanol and particularly the prospect of being able to sell E15, which is like a 15 percent ethanol blend, year-round, because that would both benefit farmers who are producing the commodity crop that goes into making ethanol, and it would benefit Iowa consumers. It would benefit me.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Right. Is it cheaper?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean when I go to the pump these days, I’m looking at like $4.30 for like unleaded 88, which is a lower ethanol blend, or $3.50, something like 80 cents less a gallon, for a higher ethanol blend. 

JAKE BOLSTER

That adds up.

ANIKA JANE BEAMER

It does. Ethanol is not quite as efficient as a fuel source, so I’d have to refill sooner. But when you’re looking at spending $50 versus $65 at the pump, that’s a real consideration.

JAKE BOLSTER 

What’s the math difference for diesel then?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

So in terms of the impact for farmers and their pocketbooks, it’s huge. The Iowa Farmers Union president, Aaron Lehman, he says that he goes through about 400 gallons of diesel a day during harvest. And right now, diesel is like $6.30 a gallon. A year ago, it was $3.50 a gallon. So that means that during a single day of harvesting work this year, he’s spending $2,500 on diesel. And a year ago, it would have been less than $1,500 a day. That’s a massive difference. 

JAKE BOLSTER 

Huge difference. All right, so Iowa is also known for its wind farms, and you know, this sounds like a strong argument for more electrified vehicles, this high diesel, high gas prices, right? And Iowa has these reasonable electricity rates thanks in part to the amount of renewables it has on the grid. How has wind energy weathered Trump’s attacks and is this an issue for voters as well?

ANIKA JANE BEAMER

It’s complicated, and I honestly think that we’ll have a better sense of how wind weathered Trump’s attacks based on how these midterm elections go. Historically, wind energy has been both a source of pride and also an economic benefit to Iowans. You mentioned our great energy rates. There’s no other state in the country that gets a larger percentage of their electricity from wind energy.

But as we know, the last year has been rough for wind energy. And both of the Republicans in the U.S. House, so Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, who fought to protect wind energy tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ultimately did vote in favor of the act, which eliminates a lot of those tax credits, and we’re seeing have real tangible impacts on the ground in terms of wind development in Iowa.

Wind farms are a top taxpayer in, like, a third of Iowa counties. A lot of farmers make a decent bit of income from leases to wind turbines. It’ll be interesting to see whether voters hold Miller-Meeks and Nunn to task for their votes in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

JAKE BOLSTER 

Thank you so much for all this wonderful reporting from the Hawkeye State, Anika Jane.

ANIKA JANE BEAMER 

Yeah, happy to talk Iowa.

Final Thought

Voters aren’t just choosing between candidates this November. Forty states have 145 ballot initiatives between them.

Ten of those are environmental and energy initiatives on ballots in eight states. 

Colorado has three. One of them asks voters to decide whether the state’s constitution should be amended to give consumers and utilities the right to purchase and sell natural gas for cooking or heating homes and businesses. 

If passed, the amendment would affect present and future laws in the state, impacting places like Boulder, which previously passed a code to require new buildings—both residential and commercial—to be built all-electric. 

Elsewhere, there are several initiatives that focus on water, including in Arkansas. There, voters must decide whether to approve a plan by the state to issue up to $500 million in bonds to fund water-related infrastructure projects like water treatment improvements, pollution abatement, and flood control.