Pew Survey Highlights Shifting Views of Americans on Energy

American views on energy are fracturing along partisan lines more sharply than at any point in recent memory, and a new Pew Research Center survey captures the depth of that divide. Conducted in March 2026 among roughly 3,500 adults, the poll landed during rising gas prices and market turbulence tied to the U.S. military conflict with Iran, conditions that appear to have sharpened opinions considerably on both sides.

The broadest finding is a steep decline in public support for prioritizing renewable energy. Six years ago, nearly four in five Americans said renewables should take precedence over fossil fuels. That figure has since fallen to just over half, with the collapse being driven almost entirely by Republicans.

In 2020, nearly two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents backed a renewables-first approach. Today, barely more than a quarter do, while roughly 71% now say fossil fuels should come first.

On the question of federal policy, wind and solar still commanded the widest public backing as close to two-thirds of respondents supported government efforts to expand their production. Coal mining attracted the weakest support, with more Americans favoring discouragement than encouragement of the sector, the research shows.

Both figures have nonetheless shifted since 2022. Public appetite for federally driven wind and solar has slipped around 7 points, while backing for coal and petroleum production has edged upward.

Republican movement on federal energy policy has been especially pronounced. Party support for government encouragement of wind and solar dropped around 10 points over four years, extending a decline exceeding 20 points since 2020. Running the other way, roughly 62% of Republicans now favor federal encouragement of petroleum extraction, up around 11 points from early 2022.

Support for federal backing of coal mining has climbed around 13 points over the same stretch. Underlying those shifts are changing perceptions of what wind and solar actually deliver. Among Republicans, the share viewing solar as environmentally superior to most alternatives has fallen around 14 points over five years, and wind has followed a nearly identical trajectory.

Cost perceptions reinforce the pattern, with nearly half of Republicans considering both sources more expensive than alternatives, while fewer than a quarter regard them as cheaper. Reliability concerns are equally pronounced, with most Republicans rating both technologies as less dependable than competing options.

Nuclear power stands apart as a relative point of convergence. Slim majorities of Republicans and growing minorities of Democrats now support federal encouragement of nuclear production, with both figures up noticeably from 2022.

Democrats, by contrast, have remained broadly stable in their backing for renewables: around 83% still say wind and solar should be the national priority, and 85% want the federal government actively promoting their development. That floor of Democratic support, the survey suggests, is the main reason renewables retain a national majority at all.

Those stats gathered by Pew Research are likely to give businesses like GeoSolar Technologies Inc. some food for thought regarding the views of the American public on matters of renewable energy expansion in the years to come.

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