The buzzword leading up to the 2026 midterm elections has been affordability. Energy affordability is one expensive category weighing on American’s wallets, especially as electricity price increases continue to outpace inflation. According to a December poll conducted by Navigator in the Environmental Polling Consortium’s year in review report, 74 percent of voters report that their utility bills are increasing.
However, that same batch of voters were more likely to say that they did not know what political party is materially to blame for these price increases than compared to other affordability issues. Hammering the point home, when asked which political party they personally believe are more able to handle inflation and the cost of living, 37 percent of respondents chose President Trump and the Republican party, while 36 percent selected the Democratic party.
Despite the definitive split domestically about which party is best suited to make the cost of living more manageable, effective energy affordability messaging has played a big role in high-profile winning campaigns. The November 2025 elections saw a swath of affordability-minded candidates win seats in office. These include new governors in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, and Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, both of which centered campaign rhetoric on lowering the cost of living for Americans. Namely, now-Governor Sherrill proposed in her campaign an obscure and “potentially complex” plan to freeze energy rates for a year to stop the flow of price increases in New Jersey. Similarly, now-Governor Spanberger heavily criticized decisions at the federal level that led to reduced energy supply investments in Virginia and increasing energy costs — apparently effective messaging for the state with the highest quantity of and electricity demand from data centers. According to exit polling, the winning candidates hit the affordability nail with a strong messaging hammer. Almost half of those polled in Virginia stated that the economy or cost of living was the key issue in the election, while 36 percent of New Jersey voters named taxes as the top issue in the state and 32 percent named the economy.
Affordability is a main piece of the agenda from across the political spectrum: Climate Power dubbed victories in the Virginia and New Jersey as “a winning playbook for 2026” and claimed they provided a framework for candidates in the midterm elections. Meanwhile, the Republican Study Committee released its “Making the American Dream Affordable Again” framework this week, one of the main pillars of which focuses on energy.
Billions of dollars have been lost from canceled clean energy projects, as reflected on the Climate Program Portal’s Outcomes Dashboard and the dip in net clean economic investments displayed by the Clean Economy Tracker. Many of those projects had the potential to help meet the soaring demand of data centers and play a part in stabilizing the higher electricity prices the average American faces today, not to mention provide new jobs. But now that those have been canceled, policymakers must find new solutions. To that end, candidates up for election this year have heeded the successes of 2025’s winners’ campaigns. The Democratic party is explicitly weaving energy affordability argumentation into its platforms while President Trump and Republican Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) have dubbed 2026 “the year of affordability.” Both positions are valuable, given the fact that experts believe that residential energy bills will not be decreasing “anytime soon.” Heavy energy affordability messaging is likely to continue this year, as may the exploration of pathways toward successfully doing so.
