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BOSTON — <\/span>BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Climate change<\/a> has been the backdrop to Charles Hughes\u2019 entire life, from kindergarten lessons about disappearing habitats to wildfire smoke billowing through the air he breathed while growing up in Colorado. But now that he’s a college student in Massachusetts, he said global warming<\/a> is rarely a top issue. <\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, it doesn\u2019t come up as much,\u201d said Hughes, who chairs the state’s chapter of the College Democrats. <\/p>\n What a difference six years makes. <\/p>\n During President Donald Trump\u2019s first term<\/a> and especially during the Democratic primaries to determine who would run against him in 2020, Democrats spoke constantly about climate change. They used it to rally young voters such as Hughes, fueling protests and sweeping demands to remake the economy with proposals like the Green New Deal<\/a>. <\/p>\n But there has been a national shift in the conversation that is sharp enough for some researchers to coin the term “climate hushing\u201d to describe it. The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, urged the party to stop mentioning climate change because it is not a priority for voters. The Sunrise Movement, a left-wing group that pushed global warming as a top issue for young people, switched its mission last fall to a broader mandate of fighting the Republican president.<\/p>\n The shift is encapsulated by the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts<\/a> on Tuesday as the incumbent, Ed Markey, 80, tries to fend off a challenge from U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, 47. Although Markey still talks about sponsoring the Green New Deal, his campaign is more focused on other issues to burnish his left-wing bona fides and prove to voters that he is not too old for the job. <\/p>\n It is the latest example of how climate change has been eclipsed by issues such as affordability, U.S. support for Israel and, above all, how to confront Trump. <\/p>\n \u201cSix years ago, Green New Deal was every phrase out of Ed Markey\u2019s mouth every chance he got. That is not the case now,\u201d said Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic strategist in Massachusetts. \u201cIt\u2019s about who\u2019s best to fight. Period, full stop. Everything falls under that.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if the political discussion on climate change has quieted, the planet has not. Scientists say there is an increasing chance that by the end of the year, 2026 could be the hottest year on record<\/a>, or at least come close. A strengthening El Nino is forecast to be off the charts, spiking global temperatures. <\/p>\n Some advocates expect the issue to return to center stage if Democrats retake the U.S. House in November and climate-sparked disasters dominate the winter. <\/p>\n U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a prominent Democratic voice on climate change, said in an interview that ignoring the issue is a major strategic \u201cblunder.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClimate change has moved from the science department into the economics department,” he said. “It’s now battering people\u2019s home insurance, property values, pocketbook concerns. So I think it\u2019s a very powerful argument.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump has falsely claimed climate change is \u201ca hoax,” and his party has regularly scoffed at Democratic proposals such as the Green New Deal.<\/p>\n The Sunrise Movement, founded in 2017 to mobilize young voters over climate issues, announced in October that it was shifting to a broader fight against \u201cfascism.\u201d The group\u2019s executive director, Aru Shiney-Ajay, said that was a prescient move because of reports that federal agents infiltrated protest meetings during Trump\u2019s immigration raids in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just live in a significantly more authoritarian country. Because of that, a lot of the Democratic primaries are about more existential questions,\u201d Shiney-Ajay, whose network generally backs left-wing Democrats, said in an interview. \u201cIt has felt less like people care less about climate and more like people are increasingly freaked out about other issues.\u201d<\/p>\n About 6 in 10 Democrats say climate change is \u201ca very big problem\u201d for the country, according to a Pew Research Center poll<\/a> from April. That is roughly the same as in 2016. Still, climate has often taken a back seat to other issues in Democratic voters’ priorities, such as inflation, healthcare affordability and the role of money in politics. <\/p>\n Affordability concerns have dominated the political debate this year. <\/p>\n McKenzie Wilson of Blue Rose Research, a Democratic data firm, said voters have called for sweeping changes in response to economic discontent, demonstrating a level of anger not seen in years.<\/p>\n \u201cIn that kind of environment it\u2019s hard to think about long-term, existential problems,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t talk and focus our attention on the number one thing the electorate wants to talk about, as we saw in 2024, we\u2019re not going to be connecting with the electorate.\u201d<\/p>\n That view was summed up by the Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank that last year released a provocative suggestion: \u201cThe First Rule About Solving Climate Change: Don\u2019t Say Climate Change.\u201d <\/p>\n It contended that voters saw it as such an intimidating, complex issue that Democrats were more likely to win by focusing on other subjects \u2014 thus enabling them to regain power and tackle the crisis that they were not talking about. <\/p>\n Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of \u201cThe Carbon Wave,\u201d a book about Democratic President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, said it was \u201cgalling\u201d when politicians made the issue less of a priority.<\/p>\n \u201cThe climate crisis is accelerating and we can\u2019t really not talk about it for like a decade, because the planet will be even more on fire if we do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, agreed with those concerns. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens over the course of the next decade will profoundly shape the habitability of the planet for literally thousands of years to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n