Americans are upset about the rising cost of everything from groceries to health care, but higher prices for gas and electricity have jumped to the top of their concerns ahead of the November midterms.
Democratic candidates are responding, looking to harness voter frustrations about the growing affordability crisis with proposals that would try to lower energy bills.
“Rising utility bills became a defining national issue — first an energy story, then an economic one and now a political one,” said Charles Hua, executive director of PowerLines, in a statement announcing the organization’s report that found gas and electric companies raised rates by $31 billion in 2025. “Electricity is the new eggs.”
The vast majority of voters in swing districts, 84%, said they have seen their utility costs rise over the past year, according to a Navigator Research survey of dozens of battleground congressional districts published in March — more than any other cost tested, including groceries or health care.
Moreover, the U.S.-Israel war with Iran has rattled global oil markets, pushing up prices at the gas pump and for consumer airfare, as jet fuel has also surged. Even if a permanent ceasefire deal is reached and holds, experts suggest it could be a year before costs fall back to prewar levels.
Public awareness is only set to sharpen this summer as the cost of air conditioning is expected to reach record highs, according to Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which supports low-income home assistance program administrators.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Republicans. “People will be getting their utility bills right before the election,” Wolfe said.
In Wisconsin, the two of the leading Democratic gubernatorial candidates — Mandela Barnes and Francesca Hong — each have their own plans to address utility bill costs. While Barnes, the former lieutenant governor, is calling for a utility freeze, Hong, a state lawmaker, supports a 2% cap on utility bills based on income.
“It’s time,” Barnes told MS NOW, noting that a two-year rate freeze was also implemented in 2017. “People are feeling the pinch, it’s crazy, and we have some of the quickest-rising utility rates in the entire country.”
Hong, a self-described democratic socialist, said individuals living under 400% of the federal poverty level are eligible for additional subsidies under her plan. “That 2% rate cap is to ensure that for folks who are both on fixed income, but also who have higher salaries, that still they would not have to pay more than that,” she said in an interview.
On the East Coast, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is up for re-election, has opposed a two-year rate moratorium backed by fellow Democrats in the state legislature, despite her neighboring counterpart — New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill, who recently signed a freeze through executive order — being credited for running on the issue last year.
In an interview with a local CBS affiliate, Hochul didn’t immediately commit to another proposal from state Democrats to pass up to $500 in energy rebates, though she strongly backed a federal rebate program through the Inflation Reduction Act that started in 2024. The governor expressed concern that energy companies could be squeezed by a loss of funds necessary for infrastructure upgrades and a transition to clean energy.
But Hochul has called for scrutiny of utility firms’ executive pay, as well as oversight of fees that companies charge for consumers. “There’s a lot to be looked at,” she said, “but it is on my list as one of my priorities to try and figure out a way to just take the pressure off New York families.”
The policy differences reveal a party still grappling with how far to embrace economic populism.
The policy differences reveal a party still grappling with how far to embrace economic populism, as progressive candidates put forward more ambitious proposals. Hochul’s approach, for example, is starkly different from the mayor of her state’s largest city, Zohran Mamdani, who supported expanding public ownership of power systems and a 6% income-based cap on utility bills.
Trevor Higgins, who leads energy and environment research at the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington think tank, says electricity rates have risen at more than twice the pace of inflation.
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“People are really quite upset about this,” Higgins said, explaining that they are experiencing a “big break” from the rate of growth for the better part of the last decade, when electricity price changes moved more slowly than inflation. “People also need immediate relief.”
Evan Roth Smith, a Democratic pollster, argued that the party’s typical anti-fossil fuel messaging could be at odds with the immediate relief that Democrats hope to promise. He noted that oil and gas production reached record highs under former President Joe Biden but that the party avoided highlighting it, out of fear of upsetting environmental advocates despite polling that showed it was popular.
“We want to be the affordability party?” Smith asked. “Maybe that makes it a little harder to be the renewables party every single time.”
Hallie Shoffner, a Democrat in Arkansas running against Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, said her state needs a “practical energy mix.” In a statement to MS NOW, she said, “Reliable power requires balance. That means traditional energy, nuclear, hydropower, wind, and responsible solar development where it makes economic sense.”
“Moving forward does not mean choosing one energy source over another,” she added. “It means using what works.”
Smith said voters want to hear “something that sounds like a real answer” when it comes to affordability concerns, not just criticism of President Donald Trump’s policies. “Especially when you’re in a Democratic primary, you can rest assured that the voters really don’t like Donald Trump,” but “you want to avoid sounding the same as everyone else.”
The proposed solutions differ depending on the area in which the candidates are running. In California, two Democratic gubernatorial candidates — former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Mayor Matt Mahan of San Jose — want to suspend the state’s gas tax, which is the highest in the country at $0.70 per gallon, and as gas prices near $6 in the Golden State, AAA reports. Republican candidate Chad Bianco, meantime, wants to end the state’s gas tax altogether.
Still, Smith warned that certain vows — like rate freezes or price caps — could be economically unsustainable in the long run.
“There is danger in some of the populist economic proposals around price intervention by the government, that while it might be very popular in the short term, there’s enormous risk for blowback,” said Smith, who mentioned an increased blackout risk as a consequence. “They’re real people pleasers, but in the end, the utilities have to run a business.”
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Akayla Gardner is a White House correspondent for MS NOW.