ICYMI: POLL: Trump’s Big Oil ‘Deal’ Turns Off Two-Thirds of Likely Voters

The Hill: “Broad majorities of voters aren’t happy with Trump’s apparent offer of a quid-pro-quo to oil companies”

Washington, D.C. – As it turns out, the American people are not big fans of politicians being in the pocket of Big Oil in exchange for campaign cash.

After the recent revelation that Donald Trump asked fossil fuel CEOs for $1 billion as he vowed to enact their agenda – insisting the price tag was a “deal” because it would be dwarfed by their excess profits (fact check: true) – The Hill reported yesterday on new polling from Climate Power and Data For Progress that underscores the political fallout, with more than 6-in-10 voters saying they’d reconsider their support for a candidate who made such a proposition.

The Hill: Trump pitch to oil companies turns off two-thirds of likely voters, poll finds

Broad majorities of voters aren’t happy with Trump’s apparent offer of a quid pro quo to oil companies, a poll from an advocacy group has found.

Almost 6 in 10 likely voters surveyed — 58 percent — said they were ‘concerned’ about a second Trump term after hearing about the former president’s reported offer to undo broad swaths of President Biden’s climate policies, according to polling by Data for Progress and Climate Power.

And nearly two-thirds — 61 percent — of likely voters told pollsters they “reconsider” their vote for a politician who made such an offer.

The findings follow reporting earlier this month in The Washington Post that Trump demanded $1 billion from top oil executives at a Mar-a-Lago Club fundraiser — an amount he called a bargain that would allow him to pass a laundry list of industry priorities…

The development came amid a larger flurry of reporting about the tight relationship between Trump and the oil industry. Earlier this month, Heatmap News reported that ‘allies of Big Oil’ had donated $6.4 million to Trump’s legal defense in his New York hush money trial.

And Wednesday, the former president will appear in Houston at a fundraiser sponsored by Kelcy Warren, chair of pipeline giant Energy Transfer Partners, and Harold Hamm of oil company Continental Resources…

When painted in broad strokes, these relationships made even a plurality of Republicans uncomfortable, Alex Witt of Climate Power told The Hill.

“A majority of voters would either not vote for — or are reconsidering voting for —  someone who made a deal with oil and gas giants in exchange for campaign donations,” Witt said.

“And what’s really interesting about that is it includes 42 percent of Republicans and a third of independents,” Witt added…

The survey’s findings are fueling a new attempt by climate groups to shave off independent voters in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Climate Power launched a new bilingual billboard campaign Monday in the seven states likely to decide November’s election.

“The idea was to meet people with the right message in the place where they’re thinking about it the most,” Witt said, referring to major commuting routes where people would likely be sitting in their cars looking at billboards.

While not mentioning Trump by name, the Climate Power ad buy shows a group of executives with cash raining down on their heads.

“They Profit,” the text reads. “You Pay.”

That campaign riffs off recent allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that oil executive Scott Sheffield of Pioneer Resources colluded with OPEC to keep oil prices high, costing the average family $3,000.

According to journalist Matt Stoller, the Pioneer play may have contributed to more than a quarter of total inflation in 2021.

“We’re anticipating that we’ll see gas prices increasing [this summer] like we do most summers and … people are filling up their car when they’re driving around cities like Atlanta or Phoenix — they’ll know exactly why those prices are going up,” Witt from Climate Action told The Hill.