About Us
Our Mission
The EV Politics Project is a bipartisan effort to better understand the growing divide between Republicans and Democrats (and Independents) over Electric Vehicle adoption. For several years, industry research has shown that price and range/charging anxiety have been the two biggest obstacles to consumer acceptance of electric vehicles on a mass basis in the United States. But a powerful new barrier is quickly rising; a growing political and cultural rift over how EVs are seen by consumers based on their political identities. Unfortunately for EV supporters of all political ideologies, a Red State Curtain is being drawn across the U.S. auto market.
Note this telling data from our November 2023 survey of U.S. voters and consumers:
“What is your opinion of electric car brands like Tesla, Polestar, Lucid and Rivian?”
| Democrats: | Independents: | Republicans: | |
| Mostly Favorable: | 36% | 29% | 9% |
| Mixed: | 43% | 46% | 42% |
| Mostly Unfavorable: | 21% | 25% | 49% |
| +15 | +4 | -40 |
Note the huge gap in EV net favorability ratings between Democratic and Republican consumers: a staggering 55%, with Republicans giving EV brands a (net) -40% negative rating while Democrats rate those EV brands at (net) +15% positive rating.
In another question on our survey, 59% of Republicans agree with the statement: “EVs are for people who see the world differently than I do” while only 25% of Democrats agree with the same statement.
We believe this growing partisan divide is a critical problem that both foreign and American EV makers must move quickly to address. As experienced political operatives with decades of experience in Republican political work at both the national and local level, we are focused on researching the causes of the Red State EV Curtain problem and developing highly effective communications strategies to overcome it and end the partisan EV divide. We are also planning an aggressive political action program to counter the flood of anti-EV messaging that is likely to appear during the 2024 election cycle. We look forward to working with leading auto industry leaders and EV supporters to share our research and insights on how to “move the needle” with Republican car and truck buyers.
Industry leaders and journalists interested in a full data briefing can reach out to us here.
Leadership
Mike Murphy
CEO
Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than 26 successful Gubernatorial and Senatorial campaigns. He served as a top campaign messaging and political strategist to Sen. John McCain’s historic Straight Talk Express Presidential campaign in 2000, and also for successful gubernatorial candidates Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tommy Thompson, and John Engler. He’s directed dozens of successful Senatorial, Gubernatorial, Congressional, and local campaigns as well as statewide ballot measures in California, Missouri, Montana, Michigan, and many other states. Murphy has worked on five GOP Presidential campaigns and has advised foreign leaders in Europe and Latin America. In 2020 he served as a key strategist for Republican Voters Against Trump.
He’s also advised many leading companies including Walmart, H&R Block, Devon Energy, MCI, Home Depot, Calpine, Carnival, and Pfizer as well as leading trade associations, tribal governments, and investment funds on messaging and communications strategies. He is a senior partner at the Washington DC-based Revolution Agency. Murphy is also a well-known media pundit; author of the popular “Murphy’s Law” column for TIME magazine and longtime senior analyst for NBC News and MSNBC with dozens of appearances on Meet the Press. He currently co-hosts the popular weekly politics podcast “Hacks on Tap” with David Axelrod, which boasts over 14 million downloads to date.
Murphy currently serves as co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. He served as a founding board member of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and was a longtime Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. A native of Detroit, Michigan Murphy also works as a writer and producer in the entertainment industry. He is a longtime automotive enthusiast. He and his family own two CCS EVs. In 2023, he wrote in his Substack blog about his experience driving their CCS VW ID4 across America from New Hampshire to Los Angeles.
David B. Hill, PhD
Senior Research Advisor
The EV Politics project’s research effort is led by Dr. David B. Hill of Hill Research Consultants.
Dr. Hill is a former faculty member at Texas A&M University. He received his Ph.D. at Florida State University and completed his post-doctoral study at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center. He has been an invited lecturer at the University of Florida and at Stanford University and in 2020 was appointed a visiting Fellow at the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.
Hill Research Consultants has varied experience in political opinion research, having worked on polling for more than 40 states for a long list of Republican officeholders and candidates as well as multiple ballot initiatives at both the local and statewide level. Hill Research has also worked extensively in the corporate sector for clients including Xcel Energy, Safeway, RBC Bank, PWC and the Trust for Public Land. Dr Hill has been a Tesla driver since 2019.
The Hill Research team also includes Dr. Stephen White, who received his Ph.D. in economics from Texas A&M University in 1985 and has continued to work with Dr. Hill ever since. Dr. White is responsible for sample design and acquisition as well as data analysis. He has pioneered numerous proprietary analytical techniques and has successfully developed numerous innovative visual approaches to presenting complex data and research results.
Joe Sacks
Executive Director
Joe is a political strategist and previously a senior staffer to former Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo. In that role, Joe was responsible for advancing the Governor’s political agenda by mobilizing stakeholders, crafting communications strategies, passing legislation, and implementing programs. During his time in the Governor’s office, Joe served on Rhode Island’s COVID Executive Response team, the COVID-19 Equity Council, and the Rhode Island Census Complete Count Committee. Joe has worked on multiple successful Gubernatorial, Senatorial, and Congressional campaigns. He’s also played a strategy role in a half-dozen successful statewide ballot measures.
Joe has also consulted for various public and private sector leaders during his tenures at Accenture, EY-Parthenon, and Enable Ventures. After getting behind the wheel of an EV, Joe became an enthusiast. Since then, he’s been speaking with EV industry stakeholders on how to best integrate political strategy into their understanding of the market.
Joe holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a B.A. in Public Policy from Brown University and is a native Rhode Islander. Contact Joe here.
Mike Murphy Explains Politics Project’s Mission
Our founder, Mike Murphy, recently did an interview on the State of Charge YouTube channel with leading EV Journalist Tom Moloughney. Tune in for yourself to learn all about our organization’s mission and what we have learned from our national polling about the big divide between Republicans and Democrats on Electric Vehicles.
Why Have Electric Vehicles Become a Partisan Issue?
Electric Vehicles (EVs) offer cleaner air, independence from foreign oil supplies, high performance, freedom from the gas pump, and meaningful progress against climate change. Increasingly, consumers agree: Electric Vehicle sales in the United States have soared from approximately 150,000 units sold in 2016 to over 1,200,000 units sold last year. By 2028, the total evolution of the Electric Vehicle market in the U.S. is expected to reach $161 billion with nearly 2.5 million EVs sold. Scores of new EV assembly, battery, and component factories are either operational or under construction in America, creating an explosion in new EV jobs. The emergence of new EV battery technology promises longer vehicle driving ranges and cleaner batteries. Electric vehicle adoption is the future of mobility, so there can be no doubt that EV issues will be a growing part of America’s political agenda.
Yet recently, EVs have become a highly partisan issue with a sharp divide between Republican and Democratic consumers. Our national polling shows each party’s voters hold very different opinions about EVs, even though voters on both ends of the political spectrum simultaneously agree on many specific positive attributes of EVs. Why is this so? And what can be done by automakers, charging network investors, climate activists, and Electric Vehicle advocates to overcome the growing hostility against Electric Vehicles among America’s several million Republican-leaning auto buyers?
Solving this problem is the core mission of the EV Politics Project. We are a team of highly experienced GOP political consultants and EV enthusiasts who deeply believe in Electric Vehicle adoption and are dedicated to moving the EV needle in a positive direction among our fellow Republicans.
You can learn more about our work and the data we have gathered in the news feed of this site.
