Every midterm, the focus is on Congress — and for good reason. But in two weeks, Americans will vote on a number of state races that will matter immensely to the energy system, the power grid, and the future direction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate Cabinet tracks those races, using what it calls “the moneyball approach” to identify the local offices nationwide with the most potential climate impact. On this episode of Shift Key, Caroline Spears, the founder and executive director of Climate Cabinet, joins Rob to discuss what's at stake this election, which state races will matter the most, and which races to watch to see where climate policy might go in 2027 and beyond.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

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Here is an excerpt from their conversation:

Caroline Spears:
I can tell you what our most successful candidates did last year and this year: They’re talking about cost.

Robinson Meyer:
Yeah.

Caroline Spears:
That’s who's successful. So when we think about those Georgia Public Service Commission elections last year, Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson ran a bills-first campaign. How can we lower your household bills? And so that’s who’s being successful in these races. And it’s because our best candidates are the people who talk to voters a lot, door-knock a lot. They’re hearing what people want to talk about. And they’re saying, “Hey, how can I use this office to actually be helpful there?” So, yeah, I mean — that’s a good campaign, which is: What do people care about? How am I going to deliver for that?

Robinson Meyer:
Yeah. There’s only been that small set of elections since affordability really became a national issue and an issue that I think Democrats felt comfortable leading after the 2024 election. We’ve only had the ‘25 elections. And I guess in ‘25, you could say Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey. I realize I keep bringing up New Jersey, but it’s New Jersey and Virginia that are the only two off-year cycles. And I guess actually in both of those states, we’ve seen the Democrats who then won in the ‘25 election put affordability right at the center of their governance. But there’s not a lot of other track record to point to.

Caroline Spears:
Yes. What I will add to that, though, is usually when you’re going into an election year, again, a good, successful candidate is talking to voters a lot. You will see legislative action that kind of presages what you think is going to happen in ‘27. We've seen so many data center bills, Rob. We're all drowning in data center bills. Over 300 were introduced in the first six weeks of 2026. It's been wild. The big thing that a lot of states have gotten passed, not that many, but just like the modal data center bill has been rolling back the tax breaks the data centers have received, which is a good start, but doesn’t even get close to where voters want politicians to be on data centers. So we’re going to see a lot more of that. If this year was crazy, next year will be even more so.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Caroline’s elections to watch:

Georgia Public Utility Commission

Arizona Corporation Commission

Eileen Hartnett Albillar in Pennsylvania Senate District 6

Trevor Jung, from Wisconsin Senate District 21

Aaron Lieberman in Arizona Senate District 4

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.