Is it possible to make GOP lawmakers pay a political price for throwing in with the climate science deniers? The League of Conservation Voters is engaged in an interesting experiment designed to answer that question, running ads targeting GOP Senator Ron Johnson and a handful of House GOP lawmakers over their climate denialism.

The group’s operating theory: Denying what science says about threats to the fate of the planet should perhaps be, you know, a tiny bit politically problematic. GOP lawmakers pay a steep price for outsized claims about abortion or immigration. Why not about something as consequential as climate change?

Now the group has done a new poll that, it says, underscores that drawing attention to a public official’s climate science denialism does erode his or her public image. The group’s polling memo is right here. The group polled on Senator Johnson in the Green Bay, WI, media market — a swing area where its ads ran — before and after the ad buy. According to the memo:

52 percent of constituents who definitely recall the ads volunteer unfavorable impressions of Ron Johnson and his record in an open-ended (unprompted) question format, and most of the concerns they express relate directly to the content of the ads.

The memo also reports a 14-point increase in those who feel less favorable towards Johnson based on what they have heard about him; an eight point increase in his job disapproval; and an eight point boost in in constituents believing Johnson is out of step on climate change. (For more on Johnson, and the results the polling found on climate-denying House GOPers, read the whole memo.)