The US election is monumental for science, say Nature readers — here’s why

The US presidential election has divided a nation, but scientists seem to be on the same page. Researchers inside and outside the United States overwhelmingly favour the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, according to roughly 2,000 readers who responded to a Nature survey. What’s more, one-third of the researchers rooting for her say it might affect their plans for where they live or study if the Republican candidate Donald Trump wins on 5 November.
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Some nine out of 10 respondents — around one-half of whom say they are based outside the United States — think that the US election is important and could have big impacts on everything from climate change to public health and science policy (see ‘A weighty election’). Although the survey is not statistically representative of Nature readers or the scientific community at large, it points to widespread anxiety about the future of the United States and its global status among researchers. In particular, many respondents expressed fear about the rise of extremism and authoritarian rhetoric under former president Trump.
“Part of me thinks you should run face first into the fire” and help to preserve US democracy, says Erik Poppleton, a US biophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, who took the survey. “But right now, if Trump is elected, I feel I would be more comfortable staying in Europe, which is sad because I want to come back.”
Poppleton is not alone. Roughly 77% of respondents identified themselves as researchers, and 86% said the election would affect whether the United States remains an attractive place to pursue a scientific career. “A country that doesn’t believe in facts is not a safe place to build a career in science,” wrote one respondent. Responses were solicited earlier this month on the Nature website, on social media and in the Nature Briefing, an e-mail newsletter.
Climate change topped the list of reasons that survey respondents gave as to why the election was important to them personally, with 34% of people selecting it. The emphasis on global warming probably reflects the reality that the United States is the world’s second largest greenhouse-gas emitter and could, on its own, drive the world over the climate cliff. Although Harris has promised to tackle the climate crisis by continuing to invest in green energy, Trump says that he will ramp up fossil-fuel development.
As for why the election is important to science, respondents once again put progress on climate change at the top of their list (26%), alongside concerns about science funding (24%) and global science policy (23%).
A minority said such fears are overblown, however, arguing that science will proceed regardless of politics or that neither major candidate appears ready to tackle the grand challenges faced by the United States and the world. “Objective, unbiased science that is based on facts will always have a venue to improve the human condition,” wrote one respondent, who said that they would prefer the cartoon character Bugs Bunny for president. “The issue is whether or not people want to hear the facts.”
A solid majority of those surveyed — 86% — favour Harris, and the percentage is roughly the same whether people reported being based in the United States (944 respondents) or abroad (842 respondents) (see ‘Support for Harris’). Still, 6% of respondents preferred Trump and another 4% said they preferred alternative candidates, including Jill Stein, who is standing for the US Green Party, and the avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, who lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Concerns and priorities differed substantially among Harris and Trump supporters. Those who said they prefer Harris were more likely to cite climate change alongside issues of security, social justice and public health as their chief concerns. Some also said that trust in science is important. Whereas Trump presents himself as being guided by political convictions, “Harris and her party show willingness to update policies based on evidence”, wrote Kate Radford, a researcher in biochemistry and biophysics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “This is the heart of science.”
Those who voiced their support for Trump emphasized issues of economics and security as their main concerns. Nature reached out to one such respondent, Jacob van Rensburg, an economist at a shipping organization in Johannesburg, South Africa, who said he thought a second Trump administration would be more likely to bring the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to an end. “Science funding — in particular climate-change funding — is irrelevant when widespread war is going on,” van Rensburg said.
Researchers based in the United States were more than twice as likely as their international counterparts to say that they would consider important changes to their lives if their preferred candidate loses (see ‘Dilemmas looming’), a sentiment that differed by political preference. Harris supporters were 50% more likely to say that they would consider relocating or changing where they study than were those who prefer Trump.
Respondents to the Nature survey included scientists wondering about whether to come to the United States, as well as US and immigrant scientists wondering whether to stay in the country. In many cases, respondents referred to the danger of a second Trump presidency. Trump has spurred concerns about racism and xenophobia owing to his anti-immigrant rhetoric and various policies implemented during his 2017–21 presidency that made it harder for foreign students and scientists to study and work in the United States.
One respondent said he already left the United States once, during Trump’s presidency, fearing that the country was in danger of becoming a failed democracy. He moved back because of a job opportunity, but says he is glad that he never gave up the citizenship of his home country. “I worry that I might have to try to leave again,” he wrote.