ON JUNE 1st Donald Trump said that America would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, an agreement between 196 countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. In a speech delivered in the White House Rose Garden, Mr Trump said that the pact would have imposed a heavy economic burden on America and intruded on its sovereignty. His claims left most climate experts scratching their heads, since each country’s commitments under the agreement are crafted by the country itself, and are not legally binding. Nonetheless, the president’s allies touted the announcement as a campaign promise kept, and a demonstration of commitment to the blue-collar voters who put him in office.

But Mr Trump’s decision may turn out to be bad politics as well as bad policy. In a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University last month, 65% of respondents said that the president should not “remove specific regulations intended to combat climate change”. Moreover, support for the Paris agreement is hardly limited to the left. The leaders of America’s biggest companies lobbied furiously for Mr Trump not to tear up the deal, to no avail. Polling data suggest that many members of the president’s party share their views. According to a recent survey by the Yale Programme on Climate Communication, not only do 86% of Democrats want to remain in the accord, but so do 51% of Republicans. Researchers at Yale and Utah State University estimate that majorities want to impose strict limits on coal-fired power plants, not just in liberal cities but also in conservative bastions such as Amarillo, Texas and Provo, Utah. An enthusiasm gap may further raise the political cost of Mr Trump’s decision: Democrats tend to rank environmental and climate issues far higher on their lists of concerns than Republicans do.

So far, however, elected local officials have mostly hewed to partisan lines. Since the president’s announcement, ten governors and 212 mayors have committed to adopting the goals of the Paris accord—including the mayor of Pittsburgh, a former steel town which Mr Trump specifically invoked when explaining his withdrawal. But he is unlikely to pay them much heed. Just 25 of the mayors who have expressed support for the climate deal live in counties that voted for the president in 2016.