Like you, all of us at Climate Solutions are still processing the election results and what they portend for the next few years, as well as the many emotions that we are feeling. It is deeply challenging to make sense of it all.

This note is an opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts on what the results mean for climate action in the Northwest.

The bottom line is this. While the presidential and congressional elections represent a monumental step backward, the ballot results in the Pacific Northwest show that voters and diverse coalitions in our region want to keep going, to do more to protect our residents, and to lead on climate and clean air.  

That is what we are going to do.

Aside from the presidential vote, the most important climate election in the United States this year was in Washington state. Here, the news is overwhelmingly positive. As of this writing, Washington voters rejected a wealthy hedge fund manager’s effort to repeal our state’s landmark climate law, the Climate Commitment Act, by a whopping 24 points, 62%-38%.

The coalition that united for this campaign was unprecedented in the history of Washington on any issue. Nearly 600 organizations of every stripe endorsed the campaign. This included 21 Tribal nations, well over 100 businesses ranging from some of the largest corporations on the planet including Microsoft, Amazon, and BP, to small businesses throughout the state. Nearly 40 labor unions worked on the campaign. So did farmers and firefighters, community and environmental justice organizations. It even included more than 50 breweries. This scale of coalition has just never happened before. It is a big deal.

The campaign also had a vibrant ground game. Organizers and volunteers knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors and made just as many phone calls. The people that volunteered came from every walk of life and from every corner of the state. This was a massive grassroots uprising for action.

Washington voters also weighed in on a second climate ballot measure. I-2066, if enacted, will mean higher energy bills, jeopardize energy efficiency incentives and roll back critical gains designed to reduce climate pollution in our second largest source of pollution — heating and cooling buildings.  On Friday the No on 2066 coalition finally conceded that this misleading methane gas initiative would barely pass after days of being too close to call.

The No on I-2066 coalition is also extraordinary. More than 200 organizations including leading doctors and nurses, labor, businesses, low-income advocates, environmental justice leaders and more. Together, we fought against the fossil fuel industry and some of the same people that brought us I-2117.  

The outcome of this election shows that the power of people, partnerships and climate policies that prioritize justice are what it takes to achieve climate progress. In a time when so much feels divided, nearly two out of every three Washington voters just sent a clear, strong message: YES to fighting climate change and building toward an equitable and just clean energy transition.

For the past 12 years, Washington state has been led by Governor Jay Inslee, arguably the most passionate and successful governor in the nation’s history on climate. Now, Attorney General Bob Ferguson will take over as governor and look to forge his own climate leadership legacy.

He will do so with a legislature that is likely to be just as supportive if not more so than the previous one on climate action. Voters elected several new members that campaigned actively on the issue of climate change. More climate champions are coming to Olympia.

We also saw emerging climate champions elected in other critical races that are often overlooked, like the commissioners who oversee local public utility districts. These elected officials have a major role in making decisions on clean energy, and we now have more champions in those seats.

In Oregon, Governor Tina Kotek will continue to lead the state. She is next up for re-election in 2026. She will have a larger Democratic legislative majority than before. They have the opportunity to make continued climate progress, which will be needed at the state level more than ever before.

One major barrier remains, which is the potential for continued obstructive tactics that we have seen in the past to stop the democratic process. Given the overwhelming popularity of climate action, renewable energy, and protections for clean air and water among Oregon voters as well, we hope both states can step up and continue to be beacons of climate progress in these coming years.

While climate initiatives fared well this election, the story at the national level is very different. The election of Donald Trump as our next president may likely be a disaster for climate progress and environmental justice. As president in his first term, he pulled the United States out of the global Paris Climate Accords. He talked openly about being a climate denier. In May on the campaign trail, he told a meeting of oil industry executives that in return for $1 billion in campaign donations he would roll back regulations and give them whatever they wanted. His track record and rhetoric make clear that he is committed to extending the destructive era of fossil fuel dominance for as long as possible. Put simply, the world does not have time for four more years of digging the climate hole deeper.

What’s next at Climate Solutions?

Here is what we know. We are going to double down on what is working. For more than 25 years, we have made progress here in the Northwest by building deep and diverse partnerships to pass and implement impressive climate policies, building power for sustained climate action, and developing innovative new programs to adapt to changing times and opportunities. We are going to keep doing all of this, and more, because it is working. The Pacific Northwest is a national and global leader on climate action, and we are deeply proud of all that we have done with our many partners to help to make that happen. We will defend our progress against rollbacks and build on it. 

Here are the questions that we are going to explore with our allies to scale up what is working and to fill the gaps needed: How can we partner with allies in other parts of the country to make sure that more states can step up to fill a massive vacuum in federal leadership? How can we build more partnerships in our region to make sure that we can build out more clean energy quickly and responsibly to meet the growing demand for electricity? How can we connect more people, businesses, and organizations to solutions like energy efficiency, heat pumps, and electric cars and trucks? How can we ensure more equity in public policy to benefit those hardest hit by climate impacts and most in need of solutions? How do we shift the narrative in voters’ minds so that they agree that there is personal benefit in their lives from climate action? These are critical questions that we grapple with all the time, and that we are eager to dive into and figure out in this new and deeply challenging era that we are stepping into.

We can’t deny that the results of the American national elections will be massively impactful to global efforts to address climate change. We also know that the momentum for accelerating climate action is real. The economic benefits and jobs that are flowing from the clean energy transition are real. State and regional leadership are central parts of keeping that momentum going against these strong national headwinds.

For more than a quarter of a century, Climate Solutions has helped to successfully drive regional climate leadership in the Pacific Northwest. We stand ready to do more.

We look forward to doing it with you.