After seeing Republicans gut their signature climate law, Democrats have embraced a strategy they think will make the GOP pay in next year’s midterm elections.
During the August recess, Democratic lawmakers have used town halls, press conferences and social media posts to hammer home that President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act phases out a host of energy incentives from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. They say that — and the administration’s hostility toward wind and solar — are beginning to show up in consumers’ utility bills.
Republicans have long said rising energy prices are because of radical climate policies from the left. Democrats think turning the tables on the GOP will help them make gains next year.
“The big ugly bill is going to mean a lot of big ugly energy bills arriving in the mail for Americans around the country,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) during a press conference back home this month.
“It’s economics 101 straight from Trump University: More demand and less supply as wind and solar is killed, more costs for consumers and small businesses.”
The strategy is coming straight from top Democratic leadership: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO that Democrats are all “on the same page” about talking about what he sees as “one of the [Republicans’] weakest” points ahead of the midterms.” Advocacy groups have been dumping millions on ads this summer to hammer home the point.
But even with that full-court press, some Democrats and renewable energy boosters acknowledge they’ll have their work cut out for them.
“The average American simply does not know how much cheaper clean energy has gotten and how much clean energy is already serving the grid,” said Adrian Deveny, founder of Climate Vision and a former top energy aide to Schumer.
Moreover, others say Democrats face an uphill climb with Republican-leaning voters who have become hostile to renewables and their link to fighting climate change.
Still, Democrats are determined to spread the word. On Friday, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Democrats responded to an NPR story about rising power prices with an attack on Republicans.
“Thank the fossil fuel industry and a subservient Republican Party for your rising energy costs,” aides to ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote on X. “You pay; they profit.”
In the House, Democrats in crucial toss-up districts are also using the GOP’s repeal of home energy efficiency credits to make sure voters know who to blame for soaring energy costs.
“As home energy costs rise, the BBB also halted the deployment of energy-efficient housing programs including ending the residential clean energy credit,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D), who faces another staunch reelection battle in Ohio’s 9th District, in a Fremont News Messenger op-ed.
“The result? Average electric bills will rise by 10% more, costing working families an additional $400 a year,” Kaptur wrote.
It’s not just lawmakers carrying the message. Democratic-aligned groups like the League of Conservation Voters and Climate Power have led ad campaigns totaling more than $12 million during recess presenting the Republican budget bill as a giveaway to the oil and gas industry that will raise electricity prices.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is looking to expand the party’s numbers in the House and protect vulnerable incumbents like Kaptur, put up ads on Meta platforms accusing Republicans of making life more expensive for Americans.
Electricity prices at the end of July averaged 5.5 percent higher than a year earlier, and the Consumer Price Index report shows energy prices are outpacing inflation by more than double. Analysts point to increasing demand.
Democrats are hoping to pin the higher costs not only on the passage of the GOP’s megabill, but also hostile actions from the White House such as increased scrutiny of renewable energy projects on federal lands and waters.
The White House and Republicans, for their part, say Democrats are still to blame for the rising prices. And they point to Trump’s actions to boost fossil fuel development and power generation.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said soaring costs were due to “the momentum of the Obama-Biden” energy policies that promoted intermittent renewables and closed fossil fuel power plants.
Whether Democrats can win the messaging battle on energy prices in the coming months could be a deciding factor in the 2026 midterms.
“Inflation is the most powerful consumer and voter issue, and electricity inflation affects everyone,” said Paul Bledsoe, who helped lead messaging on climate change for the Clinton White House. “If Democrats can show that the budget bill and Trump’s policies are the cause, it will be a political Achilles’ heel for Republicans.”
Cheap, not just clean, energy
The effectiveness of the Democratic messaging campaign may hinge on whether lawmakers can convince voters that renewable energy sources are not just good for reducing planet-warming carbon emissions, but also the cheapest form of energy available.
At the moment, most Americans simply don’t associate lower energy prices with the wind and solar resources that Democrats tried to boost in the Inflation Reduction Act, said Deveny, the former Schumer aide.
“That’s something that is an important message, not just for Democrats, but the industry itself,” said Deveny.
The emphasis of renewables leading to cheaper energy prices, rather than as a way to address climate change, could also help attract voters who have been conditioned to view climate as a partisan issue.
“I think climate is a very real and legitimate concern and reason for renewable energy. It, as a term itself, has become politicized,” said Jonathan Voss, a longtime Democratic pollster and founder of Voss Research and Strategy.
Voss continued, “You say the word ‘climate,’ and many Republican voters have been conditioned to feel a certain way about that, and they all the sudden turn off.”
Several renewable energy industry groups, like the American Clean Power Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association, have pivoted to focusing on jobs and prices during the Trump administration.
Just last week, ACP published data that showed all 10 of the states with the lowest renewable deployment have seen price increases this year, while states with the highest penetration of solar and wind saw their prices fall.
During hearings and other venues, Republican lawmakers, administration officials like Wright and their allies have repeatedly called wind and solar more expensive than fossil fuels.
The International Energy Agency found that renewables generally “improve the affordability of energy,” and states like Texas with high renewable generation have seen lower prices.
Developing grid infrastructure for renewables and managing intermittency issues during peak demand can increase retail prices, but the addition of renewable generation often lowers prices in the long term. Republicans have accused the IEA of being biased against fossil fuels.
Tom Pyle, president of the conservative Institute for Energy Research, pointed to relatively flat energy prices over the last decade despite the rapid addition of renewables to the grid. He also said the intermittent nature of renewables means they are inherently less valuable.
“It must be nice to be a Democrat, to turn around and try to blame Republicans for years of their own bad energy policy,” Pyle said. “The fact of the matter is that managing intermittent renewables and the closure of fossil fuel plants is what is driving prices up.”
Lessons from the IRA
Despite the Democratic optimism over the energy price angle, lawmakers may have to grapple with the fact that similar economic arguments didn’t do much to save the Inflation Reduction Act or win Democrats votes in the 2024 election.
After the Inflation Reduction Act became law in 2022, environmental, clean energy and Democratic groups emphasized many of the same talking points for years over how the law created good-paying jobs and led to lower energy prices for Americans.
Climate Power, for example, released a report right before the 2024 election highlighting how the Inflation Reduction Act created 330,000 new clean energy jobs and helped Americans save $38 billion on electricity bills.
Deveny, the former Schumer staffer who worked directly on the Inflation Reduction Act, believes voters didn’t have enough time to really feel the benefits and connect such benefits to federal legislation before the 2024 election.
This time around, however, Deveny believes rapidly rising energy prices will lead Americans to quickly and directly blame the energy policymaking of congressional Republicans and Trump.
“We are seeing electricity prices rise even faster than I expected, and people will feel that right away and look for someone to blame,” Deveny said. “That is different from job creation and the more gradual benefits from the IRA, which take time for people to understand and connect back to the legislation.”
Democrats and clean energy groups could also capitalize on a burgeoning new angle that wasn’t around when the Inflation Reduction Act passed: the explosive growth of data centers.
Solar projects in particular can be added to the grid in a one- to two-year timeline, which could be especially important for meeting rapid power demand.
Natural gas generation, on the other hand, faces turbine shortages, and nuclear technologies aren’t projected to be added to the grid until the 2030s.
“The key lesson that Democrats have to convey is that solar is just faster for utilities, consumers don’t understand that yet,” Bledsoe said.
“It’s not just about costs, it’s not just about emissions reductions, it’s also the speed at which electrons can be brought to the consumer, and solar does that better than any other energy source.”
Pyle said data centers need the baseload, at-the-ready generation that Trump-supported energy sources like natural gas and coal provide. He did, however, point out that Republicans will have to focus intensely on countering Democratic blame for high energy prices in the coming months.
“Republicans have to absolutely communicate effectively that this is the Biden and Obama administrations’ problem,” Pyle said. “Voters have a tendency to blame the people in charge.”
