Jay Inslee's week finds all Democratic eyes on climate

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee gained some political wins in recent days that could help his presidential run, just as he's trying to make it onto the Democratic debate stage.

Joni Balter, host of Seattle Channel's “Civic Cocktail,” and KIRO 7 political reporter Essex Porter spoke with KUOW's Angela King about Inslee’s week.

The Miami connection

Joni Balter: He signed a package of climate bills that gives him the ability to say, “I don't just talk about climate change, I actually deliver on climate change.”

Essex Porter: The Inslee campaign tweeted out that they have reached 50,000 individual contributors. Very important because they need to get to 65,000 to guarantee that Jay Inslee will be in the first debate. It's especially good for Jay Inslee because that first debate is in Miami, which is going to be one of the places that really suffers from climate change as ocean sea levels rise.

Balter: A CNN poll for the first time shows that climate change is top of mind for Democratic primary voters. So that's good news for Jay Inslee because that means that people will be drawn to his candidacy. However on the bad news frontier, the Real Clear Politics rolling average has not reflected that.

Porter: When it comes to the debates there are only a few certain polls that the Democratic National Committee is considering and most of the polls in that average are excluded. Now Inslee remains pretty much at 1% in polls but you only have to be at 1%. That CNN poll said 82% of the people voting for Democrats in the primaries say that climate change is very important, 96% very important or somewhat important. So climate change is the top issue.

Coal job jabs

King: Lara Trump, the president's daughter in law and campaign surrogate, slammed Inslee over trying to eliminate coal jobs. Does he have to battle that one down?

Porter: Well it is partisanship playing out in front of us, but he does have to address the argument no American wants to see another American lose jobs because their industry is eliminated. We talk about coal jobs but there really aren't that many nationwide, roughly 50,000 or so. There are far many more jobs growing in clean energy sector.

Then there’s Joe Biden

Balter: Everyone's losing sleep now that Joe Biden is in the race because he is far and away the frontrunner. But there so much time -- we have to pace ourselves here, folks.

Porter: I'm not sure that the Biden entry is unexpected or necessarily has that much effect. No one has seized on a particular issue the way Jay Inslee has seized on climate change, and it is the top issue in the polls.