Climate activist turned politician

Will Lawrence, a Sunrise Movement co-founder, is running for Congress in Michigan's Seventh District. His campaign focuses on data centers and affordability rather than climate.

The bigger trend

Millennial progressives across the country are shifting focus from climate to issues with broader voter appeal, raising questions about the left's changing priorities.

Sunrise's early wins

The Sunrise Movement successfully pushed climate jobs and justice to the top of the Biden administration's agenda, shaping the Build Back Better negotiations.

“We put climate jobs and justice at the top of the agenda for the incoming Biden administration.”

Build Back Better falls short

Build Back Better came up two votes short in the Senate, but Lawrence sees the resulting Inflation Reduction Act as historic: the largest green investment in US history.

“This is historic. This is the largest investment in green jobs and infrastructure in United States history.”

Still not enough

Lawrence's district received 26 billion dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act, but he acknowledges it represents only 5 to 10 percent of what's actually needed to address climate change.

“This is maybe 5 percent or 10 percent of what we need in scope.”

Why climate fell down the list

Lawrence says multiple acute crises have bumped climate, a slower-moving threat, lower on voters' priority lists. People are focused on immediate economic security.

“Climate, which is a super massive but also somewhat slow-moving crisis, a little bit lower on the priority list.”

Coming home to Michigan

After the pandemic, Lawrence moved back to Michigan to focus on housing and local advocacy, realizing he needed a more immediate entry point to organize people.

Rent beats climate

People care about paying rent and buying homes more than abstract climate threats. Housing unites people across urban, rural, and suburban divides.

“People know that that's an issue, but they're like, "I've gotta pay rent at the end of the month."”

Trump's 2024 Michigan win

Lawrence wasn't surprised Trump won Michigan in 2024. He saw economic anxiety, the Gaza war, and a fractured Democratic coalition unfold like a slow-motion train wreck.

“I just saw that unfolding over the course of the whole year, just like a slow-motion train wreck.”

Data centers as unifier

In his district, data centers are the issue bringing people together across the political spectrum to fight concentrated Silicon Valley power.

“That's where people in the district are finding some common ground across the spectrum.”

Crisis hopping concerns

Critics worry progressives jump from climate to AI to housing without solving any of them. Lawrence counters that everything is unraveling simultaneously.

“It can sometimes feel like folks hop from issue to issue, whether it's climate, even anti-AI right now, without those things being solved.”

The polycrisis reality

Lawrence describes a polycrisis: overlapping crises where the entire social, economic, and political compact is being renegotiated globally.

“It seems like everything is unraveling, and it is because the whole social, economic, political compact is being renegotiated.”

People have agency

Lawrence's through line is belief in regular people's agency to take charge and build a better future together, a lesson from his organizing days.

“I believe in the agency of regular people taking charge of our own lives and working together to build a better future.”

Hope from organizing

Lawrence found hope through organizing by seeing regular people win victories for their kids and grandkids, moving past his earlier despair.

“It was seeing that regular people have come together before, and they've won a better future for their kids and grandkids.”

People performing miracles daily

Campaigning across his district, Lawrence meets people already performing miracles on a daily basis, giving him hope despite the powerless feeling of the AI age.

“You just see the way that people are already performing miracles on a daily basis.”