> It is not a major issue for either party, candidates almost never bring it up

Uhh yeah? Because it's been dead since the 1990s? You can look at a graph of new nuclear power platnts and see it curtail off after a peak in the 90s.

> It’s not political, it’s unpopular broadly.

When it was a major political issue, the anti-nuclear advocates were almost entirely on the left. It was seen as part of the environmental movement (which has been left-leaning).

Not all politcs problems are one side against the other, sometimes a political problem does mean “this is a good idea, but too generally unpopular to be implemented”.

For nuclear it’s also a local politics problem, not national problem generally: people don’t have an issue with nuclear in general, but they do have strong opposition for it being built near where they live.

Nuclear power is mainly an economical problem, meaning it is too expensive to be viable.

I think the economics are why you don't see industry pushing it. If they thought it was an easy route to lots of $, they would start pushing it (and against the anti-nuke movement).