For the first time in memory, electricity prices played a decisive role in election results on Tuesday, November 4, and pragmatic, all-of-the-above energy strategies helped many candidates over the finish line. In key statewide elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and Georgia, Democratic candidates honed in on electricity affordability, embracing all-of-the-above energy and offering practical solutions.
The Role of Energy Prices: Residential electricity prices increased by 10% nationwide this year. It’s even more stark in New Jersey, where prices jumped 21%, and Virginia, where they rose 13%. Democratic candidates zeroed in on this, offering clear steps they would take to combat rising prices and making the case that clean energy is affordable.
The Policy Solutions: In Virginia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger outlined a pragmatic "Affordable Virginia Plan" to expand local generation through a diverse mix of technologies, enhance energy-efficiency programs, modernize the grid, and require data centers that drive up demand to help fund the necessary infrastructure upgrades to maintain reliable power. She consistently pointed to the Trump administration's actions, notably its withdrawal from Norfolk's wind project, as proof that those policies directly raise prices and stall local job growth.
In the New Jersey governor’s race, Democrat Mickie Sherrill struck a similar note, putting affordability at the center of her campaign. She pledged to declare a state of emergency on utility costs and freeze rates for a year to give families breathing room while New Jersey accelerates its clean energy buildout. Like Spanberger, she drew a sharp contrast with her Republican opponent’s embrace of the Trump agenda, calling out his administration for policies that would raise household energy costs and jeopardize local projects.
As Josh Freed, Senior Vice President for Third Way’s Climate and Energy Program, told Politico this week, “The party that controls Washington promised a year ago to cut energy prices in half. They have failed to deliver, and voters are angry at that. They made that loud and clear basically in every county and every state that had elections.”
What’s Next: This week’s results are an early indicator of how the economy will be at the center of the 2026 and 2028 elections. Until prices come down relative to people’s weekly paychecks, affordability is going to dominate the conversation. Candidates need strategies to cut costs for working people. And while campaigning on lowering prices is easy, actually doing it is much harder.
Those of us who work in energy know that the problems driving costs–aging infrastructure, slow permitting, interconnection bottlenecks, and regulatory inertia–don’t fit neatly into campaign slogans. They’re often technical, bureaucratic, and hard to fix quickly. But they’re also solvable. The challenge for policymakers is to turn political momentum into delivery, making it faster, cheaper, and easier to build the infrastructure that actually lowers prices. We’re already working with a number of Governors on pragmatic affordability policies, and will bring together the best ideas to help create and enact a broader, bold agenda.
