PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Long, Elisa F. AU - Chen, M. Keith AU - Rohla, Ryne TI - Political storms: Emergent partisan skepticism of hurricane risks AID - 10.1126/sciadv.abb7906 DP - 2020 Sep 01 TA - Science Advances PG - eabb7906 VI - 6 IP - 37 4099 - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/37/eabb7906.short 4100 - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/37/eabb7906.full SO - Sci Adv2020 Sep 01; 6 AB - Mistrust of scientific evidence and government-issued guidelines is increasingly correlated with political affiliation. Survey evidence has documented skepticism in a diverse set of issues including climate change, vaccine hesitancy, and, most recently, COVID-19 risks. Less well understood is whether these beliefs alter high-stakes behavior. Combining GPS data for 2.7 million smartphone users in Florida and Texas with 2016 U.S. presidential election precinct-level results, we examine how conservative-media dismissals of hurricane advisories in 2017 influenced evacuation decisions. Likely Trump-voting Florida residents were 10 to 11 percentage points less likely to evacuate Hurricane Irma than Clinton voters (34% versus 45%), a gap not present in prior hurricanes. Results are robust to fine-grain geographic controls, which compare likely Clinton and Trump voters living within 150 m of each other. The rapid surge in media-led suspicion of hurricane forecasts—and the resulting divide in self-protective measures—illustrates a large behavioral consequence of science denialism.