Geothermal energy offers something for everyone in U.S. politics. The industry generates clean power that appeals to Democrats looking to keep emissions down. It’s also a firm source of power, producing electricity and heat 24/7 and avoiding a key critique Republicans level against solar and wind — all while creating a new market for the oil and gas industry’s drilling technology and workforce.
However, the overwhelming majority of Americans are still in the dark about geothermal power. That’s according to a new survey from the pollster Data for Progress, shared exclusively with Latitude Media.
Of the 64% of likely voters who said they were unfamiliar with geothermal energy, 35% said they were not familiar at all while 29% indicated they were “only a little familiar.” Just 9% of voters overall said they were very familiar, while 26% said they were “somewhat familiar.”
At 41%, Republicans indicated a greater degree of familiarity with geothermal power than Democrats at 32% or independents at 31%.
The survey then presented participants with a description of geothermal power as energy “extracted by drilling wells into hot underground rock formations. Water found within or piped into these rock formations turns into steam and that steam is used to spin turbines that produce electricity that can be used by homes and businesses.” After reading the blurb, support surged with three quarters of likely voters backing expanding development of geothermal power in the U.S.
That includes 67% of Democrats, 77% of Republicans, and 72% of independents. Republicans were by far the most enthusiastic, with 30% expressing “strong support.”
“What this indicates to us as pollsters is that people are still making up their minds,” Catherine Fraser, the senior climate and energy program associate at Data for Progress, told Latitude. “They think they support it, but they’re not entirely sure. That speaks to some of the need for education.”
After reading a line detailing the risks of geothermal energy — that it’s “disruptive to local landscapes and habitats, can potentially trigger earthquakes, and can cause noise pollution” — support dropped across all political factions. Support among Democrats fell to 55%, and among Independents to 54%; Republicans remained the strongest supporters at 64% support versus 24% opposed.
The poll ran in early July, just a week after the passage of the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill. It surveyed 1,179 likely voters in the U.S., with a margin of error of three percentage points.
Strong support for nuclear
The survey also tested Americans’ opinion on nuclear power, which for decades faced public skepticism and even outcry in the wake of high-profile disasters like the partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. However, things have changed; the Data For Progress poll found a majority likely voters support expanding the power source, which is in line with what recent polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center indicated as well.
Overall, 58% of U.S. voters supported building more nuclear power plants, with just 31% opposed. Democrats and independents were more divided, with 52% and 51% in support, respectively; Republicans, as has long been the case, showed higher support, with 68% backing expanding nuclear and 23% opposed.
The starkest divide was in gender. Just 49% of women favored building more nuclear plants, versus 70% of men.
Among the more unique — if pretty arcane, for the average voter —questions in the survey was one that asked whether respondents “prefer that nuclear power plants in your state be built, owned, and operated publicly, such as by a state or the federal government, or privately, such as by energy companies?”
The question comes as two of the most advanced proposals to build new small modular reactors in the U.S. are under the umbrella of the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority. In June, meanwhile, New York Governor Kathy Hochul directed the New York Power Authority — the nation’s largest government-controlled utility after the TVA — to build the state’s first nuclear plant since the 1980s.
The question was divisive. Of all likely voters, 37% supported public ownership, while 28% said nuclear power plants should instead be privately built, owned, and operated; meanwhile, 23% said they don’t support any nuclear power plant in their state. Democrats and independents — at 40% and 41%, respectively — were more likely to favor public ownership than Republicans, at 32%. A larger chunk of Republicans favored privately built, owned, and operated nuclear power stations.
In a subsequent question asking what kind of entity voters would prefer to control a nuclear plant, a plurality at 23% said a utility company, followed by 17% who favored “a regional public power board elected by people in your region.” The federal government slightly eclipsed state government at 12% to 11%. Just 5% said a big tech company like Amazon or Microsoft.
“This finding that most voters want nuclear to be publicly owned and operated lines up with what we’ve seen for other types of clean-energy infrastructure. We’ve gotten a similar result of transmission lines,” Fraser said. “It just reflects something that we’ve seen throughout surveys, that folks are really keen to have local, trusted control over infrastructure generally, and are excited by models that could put power in the public’s hands or have oversight that feels more local and trusted than, say, a private sector.”
Overall, a plurality of voters said the U.S. should prioritize developing both geothermal and nuclear power. Slightly more Democrats supported developing geothermal instead of nuclear power, while Republicans strongly favored both.
