Employment, green industrial policy investments and public opinion

Respondents will be randomized into different groups. Randomization occurs in three stages:
• Stage 1 (domain level): Each respondent is randomly assigned to either the RE deployment arm or the Low-carbon technology manufacturing arm (50:50 split).
• Stage 2 (framing level): Within each domain, respondents are randomly as-signed to control group, neutral framing group or partisan framing group (33:33:33 split).
• Stage 3 (technology level): Within each treated arm, respondents are ran-domly assigned to one of two possible technologies (50:50 split):
o RE deployment arms: solar power park vs. wind power park
o Low-carbon technology manufacturing arms: EV manufacturing plant vs. battery manufacturing plant

All respondents within a domain are presented with a general information (“Across the United States, new clean [energy generation/technology manufacturing] pro-jects have been built or announced in many areas."). In addition, treated individuals are informed about a recent, salient project of their respective technology in their state. The treated respondents are informed with a short text, which includes the specific project, as well as a mock newspaper article. The mock newspaper article differs slightly depending on (a) the respondent’s framing arm (neutral vs. partisan), (b) the technology they were sampled into and (c) the state they live in. Here is an example for the treatment information about the technology, here a wind power park (Ohio), shown before the neutral or partisan-framed newspaper article:
“Across the United States, new clean energy generation projects have been built or announced in many areas, such as wind power parks.
In Ohio, such parks have recently been opened. For example, the Martin Marietta Wind Project is located in Sandusky County. Wind power parks have also been built in other counties in Ohio.
Here is an illustrative example of media reporting on such projects:”
After this technology and project information, dependent on the randomized treat-ment arm and respondent’s state, mock newspaper articles are shown.

Randomization is conducted by the survey platform using simple random assign-ment without stratification. Randomization is independent of all measured covariates. We will verify balance on key pre-treatment covariates (e.g. age, gender, education, party identification) in the final data and report any imbalances in the analysis.

2026-01-14

2026-02-14

• Vote Intention (Presidential and House): Democratic candidate, Republican candidate, other candidate or abstention
• Overall Investment Support: 7-point scale from "Strongly oppose" to "Strongly support" for the relevant project type (RE deployment or low-carbon technol-ogy manufacturing) as well as for relevant specific technologies of the project type

• Material Benefit/Cost Evaluations. Composite index from 7-point bipolar scales measuring perceived impacts on: incomes, jobs, economic growth, electricity prices, cost of living, and U.S. global economic competitiveness
• Symbolic Benefit/Cost Evaluations. Composite index from 7-point bipolar scales measuring perceived impacts on: community life, U.S. global image, identity and values, climate protection, landscapes, and middle class standing
• Attribution of Responsibility. Multi-select question identifying which actors (Biden/Harris Administration, Trump/Vance Administration, Congress, state officials, private companies, etc.) are seen as responsible for projects, plus a forced-choice question identifying which political party is primarily responsible
• IRA Knowledge. Categorical question assessing with four items respondents’ knowledge about the IRA.
• IRA Effects on Investments. 7-point scale measuring perceived responsibility of the IRA for investments into RE deployment and low-carbon technology manufacturing

The full sample is randomly divided into two parallel survey arms, each focusing on one investment domain:
• Domain 1: RE deployment Investments. Respondents answer questions about RE deployment investments (e.g., wind farms, solar farms, energy stor-age investments).
• Domain 2: Low-carbon technology manufacturing investments. Respondents answer questions about low-carbon technology manufacturing investments (e.g., EV manufacturing plants, battery manufacturing plants).
Within the domain, respondents in the treatment group get a salience treatment on different domain technologies (cf. “Interventions”), but the questions before and af-ter the treatment are the same for everyone within the respective domain (e.g., “Overall, how much do you support or oppose clean energy generation projects?”, and not “Overall, how much do you support or oppose solar energy generation pro-jects?”). Between the two domains, the questions are identical except for the domain mentioned as well as the specific technologies mentioned in individual questions (e.g., differing investment types for the question “How much do you support or op-pose the following specific types of clean [energy generation/technology manufac-turing] projects?”).
Before treatment occurs, respondents are asked about their demographic character-istics; political preferences and past voting behaviors; salience of, opinion on and perceived exposure to the investments from the respective domain.
In the analysis, the two respective technologies will be primarily analyzed at the domain-level (RE deployment/Low-carbon technology manufacturing), rather than at the technology-level (solar, wind, EV, battery).

Not available

Randomization is conducted by the survey platform using simple random assign-ment without stratification. Randomization is independent of all measured covariates. We will verify balance on key pre-treatment covariates (e.g. age, gender, edu-cation, party identification) in the final data and report any imbalances in the analysis.

Individual

No

Not clustered

6,000 individuals

2,000 Michigan; 2,000 Ohio; 1,000 Texas; 1,000 California

Across all 6,000:
16.67% RE Group - Control
8.33% RE Group - Solar - Neutral Framing
8.33% RE Group - Solar - Partisan Framing
8.33% RE Group - Wind - Neutral Framing
8.33% RE Group - Wind - Partisan Framing
16.67% Manufacturing Group - Control
8.33% Manufacturing Group - EV - Neutral Framing
8.33% Manufacturing Group - EV - Partisan Framing
8.33% Manufacturing Group - Batteries - Neutral Framing
8.33% Manufacturing Group - Batteries - Partisan Framing