Voters say energy affordability and reliability are top of mind

By EPN Staff

A recent poll by Newt Gingrich’s America’s New Majority Project shows voters want two things when it comes to energy: affordability and reliability.

The poll, conducted by McLaughlin and Associates in late December 2025, asked voters what their priorities were when it came to energy policy. Voters said they want policymakers to focus on affordability (68.3%) and electricity grid reliability (38.9%). Only 18.2% of voters wanted policymakers to prioritize so-called clean energy usage. 

According to one state regulator, obtaining affordable, reliable energy means rolling back ill-designed federal and state policies that choose winners and losers. If left in place, these rules could raise prices even more, diminish technology innovation, and further erode reliability.

Why it matters

Electricity prices, which closely tracked with overall inflation from 2013 to 2023, are now rising twice as fast as inflation. From December 2024 to December 2025, electricity prices jumped 6.7%. Between 2020 and 2025, they rose 38%.

Consumer concern about these spikes is nearly universal. In a survey of Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi voters last summer, Cygnal found 88.4% of voters are worried about the price they pay for electricity.

Democrats have blamed AI, demand for data and data centers for the price increases. Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tricia Pridemore said those claims are false. 

“Data centers cannot be the reason for cost increases simply because data center construction has not manifested that much over the last 12 months,” said Pridemore.

Pridemore said scapegoating data center operators could bring the United States’ technology revolution to a grinding halt. Biden inflation, along with decades of policy that focused on certain types of energy over others, is the genesis of the price spikes, Pridemore said.

“What has made these cost increases is not only Biden administration-induced inflation, but also renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) that have been passed by state governments all across the country, from California, Illinois, Minnesota (and) New York,” explained Pridemore. “An RPS is basically a mandate that hydrocarbon-based energy generation, such as coal and natural gas, be retired in favor of renewables. Renewables are neat, but renewables have one great physical scientific shortcoming, which is that they only operate when the sun shines and the wind blows.”

Voters are also increasingly wary of renewable energy mandates. According to the McLaughlin and Associates report, a plurality of voters believes these mandates raise costs. That number includes 57% of GOP voters, 40% of Independents, and nearly one-third of Democrats.

The bigger picture

Those findings are not isolated. In New Hampshire, 60% voters told NHJournal/Praecones Analytica they want their state leaders to “make lower prices for gas and electricity their priority over climate change.” 

“[T]his is a conversation about physics and finances,” said Pridemore. 

She urged policymakers to “stop” renewable portfolio standards and prevent the early retirement of gas, coal, and nuclear plants.

GOPAC Chair David Avella agreed. GOPAC works with political professionals and lawmakers on free-market principles and how to communicate them effectively.

“The leaders who champion building more power plants to increase supply, ending harmful mandates and providing more choices for consumers are putting America on the path to more affordable energy,” said Avella. 

Avella offered a set of principles to guide policymakers. 

“Supply, demand, and choice are central to energy affordability,” said. “Opponents to more supply and choice to meet demand play class warfare.” 

Avella said those opponents want a diversion from their failed and expensive mandates, and that they never mention the blocked power plants for natural gas, coal, and nuclear. 

“Instead, they are demonizing AI and crippling energy production,” Avella concluded. “This won't solve the problem. We need more power, not less.”