2/3 say they won't support a presidential candidate who denies climate change

Climate change could be a key factor in the 2016 presidential election, with 67 percent of people saying they wouldn't vote for a candidate who believes human-caused climate change is a hoax, says a poll by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future, Coral Davenport and Marjorie Connelly report for the Times. The poll, which was conducted from Jan. 7-22, included 1,006 adults.

The poll found that 48 percent of Republicans are more likely to support a candidate who campaigns to fight climate change, even though 47 percent of Republicans also said "policies designed to curb global warming would hurt the economy," Davenport and Connelly write. "In 2012, all the Republican presidential candidates but one—Jon M. Huntsman Jr.—questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming and opposed policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions." (NYT graphic)

"The poll found that 83 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Republicans and 86 percent of independents, say that if nothing is done to reduce emissions, global warming will be a very or somewhat serious problem in the future," Davenport and Connelly write. "And while the poll found that 74 percent of Americans said that the federal government should be doing a substantial amount to combat climate change, the support was greatest among Democrats and independents," with 91 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of independents and 51 percent of Republicans saying the government should fight climate change.