Mikie Sherrill, the newly elected governor of New Jersey, took a moment out of her inauguration speech on Tuesday to fulfill a campaign promise. She signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency for energy costs and ordering a freeze on utility rate increases. Sherrill’s campaign — she won both the Democratic primary and the general elections by big margins despite predicted nail biters in both cases — zeroed in on the state’s energy costs, among the fastest-growing in the country. Her day 1 order declares, “the top priority of this administration is to make New Jersey more affordable for all New Jersey residents, families and businesses.”
In Virginia, another newly inaugurated Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, is making similar moves. Her first executive order is a “statewide affordability directive,” instructing state agencies to find “actionable budgetary, regulatory or policy changes that would reduce costs for Virginians.” Another order calls for a review of state regulations on housing, with the intent of promoting more housing construction to drive down costs.
Sherrill and Spanberger were swept into office in an off-year blue wave last fall, driven partly by voters’ anger about the persistently high cost of living during the first year of Donald Trump’s second administration. Affordability was the byword of the 2025 campaign season. But Democrats don’t have credibility on the issue merely by virtue of being Democrats. Many of the same concerns about the rising cost of utilities, groceries, housing and other basic needs elevated Trump back into the presidency in 2024. Sherrill directed her campaign messaging against Trump, but she was running to succeed a fellow Democrat in the governor’s office, so she had to be careful in her rhetoric. Elected Democrats will need to prove they can deliver on the affordability issue if they hope to keep it as a winning campaign strategy through this fall, when the entire U.S. House of Representatives, 33 Senate seats and 36 gubernatorial seats are up for grabs.
That won’t be easy. The cost of housing has been rising for years, driven partly by low supply, for which state and local government policies bear a portion of the blame. But other factors, including the spiking costs of construction labor and materials, are generally outside the grasp of state and local government. On utility costs, both New Jersey and Virginia are served by PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization that manages the power grid. Decisions made by that organization, including investment in new transmission infrastructure to support the growth of data centers, filter down to residential ratepayers. Lawmakers in both states are looking to protect ratepayers from costs associated with the centers, but no state controls PJM directly, and its investments take years to pay down. Sherrill is betting that the freeze on utility rate increases — it’s actually state-provided residential credits to offset the rising rates — will be appreciated by voters. “I hope, New Jersey, you remember me when you open your electric bill and it hasn’t gone up another 20 percent,” she said at her inauguration.
Republicans meanwhile are seizing on the same issues. Members of the GOP minority in Virginia’s House of Delegates have introduced a package of bills aimed at affordability concerns, acknowledging that “voters sent a clear message” in the last election, as the House minority leader, Terry Kilgore, said in a press conference this week. Their proposals include eliminating taxes on groceries, reducing a tax on cars, making an expanded standard tax deduction permanent, and rolling back parts of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which Republicans blame for high utility costs. Some legislative Republicans criticized Spanberger’s opening-day actions, saying that trimming taxes is a more direct way to lower costs than asking for a 90-day report, as Spanberger has done. Around the country, too, Republicans at the state level have gained credibility on housing issues as they have backed plans to chip away at state and local land-use regulations.
Officials in both parties are looking for clear wins on specific costs as they make their appeals to voters. But as long as the cost of living feels too high for too many people, affordability is an issue that will favor challengers over incumbents.
