As the 2026 campaign continues to heat up, a host of new candidates are highlighting their energy and environment bona fides.
They come from diverse backgrounds. One hopeful works in the solar industry and is touting a bipartisan permitting overhaul; another was a climate change scientist who recently left the federal government; still another works in the offshore oil and natural gas industry.
Democrats are zeroing in on rising electricity costs, as part of a broader message on the cost of living, with the hopes it will be a deciding factor in their drive to take the House or Senate majority.
In recent months, they’ve coalesced around a message that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President Donald Trump’s signature tax and immigration law, will be responsible for utility bills increasing by hundreds of dollars per year for some families.
Meanwhile, Republicans hoping to hold on to their control of both chambers of Congress want to double down on Trump’s fossil-fuel-heavy energy policies.
Here are five candidates with key energy and environment records.
Eric Moyer (House, D-Neb.)
Eric Moyer has spent most of the last decade of his career in solar energy development, after working in commercial real estate previously. He’s a Democrat, hoping to challenge incumbent Rep. Mike Flood (R) in Nebraska’s 1st District, which leans Republican.
Moyer is focusing on cost-of-living issues in his campaign. He’s criticizing Flood for his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, saying it’ll hurt clean energy and raise costs through its rollback of energy tax credits and restrictions on safety net programs like food aid and Medicaid. He’s the only Democrat in the race so far.
“It openly attacked our industry. It openly mocks farmers. And it will doom struggling families throughout Nebraska to grinding poverty without any safety net,” he said in an interview. The law makes developing small-scale solar “very challenging,” he said.
Moyer also backs overhauling federal permitting policies and supports the “Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act” from Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), as well as policies to boost biofuels, including by building up biodiesel processing capacity.
Carol Obando-Derstine (House, D-Pa.)
Carol Obando-Derstine is an energy engineer who worked in the electric utility industry, most recently as regional affairs director for PPL, the electric company for Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.
She’s running in what’s shaping up to be a crowded Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 7th District. The winner will take on Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who flipped the seat from Democratic control in 2024 but is one of the most vulnerable Republicans in next year’s midterms.
“I’ve seen firsthand how smart investments can lower costs for families and businesses and help create jobs — good-paying, union jobs, in some instances — here in this district,” Obando-Derstine said in an interview, pointing out that she’s the “only energy expert” in the primary.
As Democrats increasingly hope to make rising electricity prices a central theme in the midterms, Obando-Derstine’s campaign could be key.
“The No. 1 thing that I hear about in the Lehigh Valley is affordability. And right now, energy bills keep climbing, and people are worried about that and worried about jobs and the future of our economy,” she said.
“Ryan Mackenzie voted to rip away the very options that keep costs down and grow jobs,” she continued, referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Obando-Derstine has support in the race from former Rep. Susan Wild (D), Mackenzie’s predecessor.
Blake Miguez (Senate, R-La.)
Blake Miguez is mounting a primary challenge against incumbent Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy (R), who has faced significant criticism for his 2021 vote to convict Trump after his impeachment, among other positions conservatives disagree with.
Miguez, a state senator, is president of SeaTran Marine, which provides crew transportation services to the offshore oil and natural gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. He’s also a partner in Miguez Fuel, a family-owned bulk fuel supplier.
Cassidy has oil and gas credentials of his own. He sits on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is a vocal advocate for increasing offshore drilling.
He wrote the “Foreign Pollution Fee Act,” which would put new tariffs on certain imported carbon dioxide-intensive goods, which Cassidy argues would give domestic manufacturers a leg up. That could hurt him in deep-red Louisiana.
“I’m running for the U.S. Senate because Bill Cassidy sucks,” Miguez said in a June video announcing his campaign, drawing heavily on his record as a champion sharpshooter. “Phony politicians like Bill Cassidy can’t shoot straight, but I can.”
John Fleming, Louisiana’s Republican state treasurer, previously announced that he’d run against Cassidy.
Megan O’Rourke (House, D-N.J.)
Megan O’Rourke was a climate change scientist working at the Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture before she resigned this year following Trump’s crackdown on climate science.
She soon entered the crowded Democratic primary field against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R) in New Jersey’s 7th District, one of the districts considered most in-reach for Democrats.
She told POLITICO that she left USDA because she felt Trump’s initial policies were unconstitutional. “I felt like I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to serve in my position,” she said.
O’Rourke argues that she’s well suited to the task of flipping a district.
“It’s very personal to me what’s going on and that I understand the financial struggles that people have in the district and with my union leadership, I have a track record of being very trustworthy, of being a leader who will make hard choices and represent the people,” she said.
“I’ve always worked in the agricultural community, finding common ground, trying to gain the trust of the rural working-class vote for the Democratic Party. And I think that that’s an opportunity for me to gain the votes necessary to flip the seat from red to blue.”
Cammie Croft (House, D-N.J.)
Cammie Croft is hoping to run as a Democrat in what would be a special election next year for New Jersey Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s seat, if Sherrill wins the New Jersey gubernatorial race.
Croft was most recently a vice president at Rewiring America, an advocacy group pushing for electrification, particularly in the residential sector, but also clean energy deployment more broadly.
Her campaign is focused on what lawmakers and other leaders can do to help children and other future generations.
“In this moment, it feels like all of the things that we have been fighting for feel like they are on pause or going backwards. My kids are going to ask me someday, ‘What did you do in this moment?’ And I want to be able to tell them I did everything I could,” she said in an interview.
Climate change has been a longtime focus for Croft because it “is the greatest human rights crisis of our time, and making sure that my kids have a fighting chance felt very important to me.”
Croft worked in communications for then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu and has worked at other organizations like Amnesty International and FWD.us.
