Poll Shows Democrats Hold Edge Over Trump In Energy Cost Battle

Slightly more Americans think Democrats, not Republicans, are the party most committed to reducing energy prices, a new POLITICO poll has found — yet another sign of potential trouble for President Donald Trump and the GOP on the issue of affordability.

Thirty-seven percent of U.S. adults believe Democrats care more about protecting them from spiking natural gas, heating and utility bills, compared with 25 percent who believe Republicans do, according to the poll of 2,093 people conducted by Public First on behalf of POLITICO.

While far short of a majority, the edge for Democrats on the question is striking given the decades that surges in fuel costs have tormented nearly every Democratic president since Jimmy Carter, giving Republicans a message to hammer at election time. As recently as late 2024, polls showed most voters trusting Trump over Kamala Harris to shepherd the economy.

But those tides may be turning, amid signs that stubbornly high — and rising — heating and electricity costs in much of the country could endanger Republicans’ slim four-seat lead in the House in the November elections. Trump has tried to quash unrest over skyrocketing electricity bills, which have soared despite his vow to slash energy costs in half during his first year in office.

Yet the polling also showed neither party has a strong advantage on affordability, said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and partner at public relations agency ROKK Solutions. He noted that Trump has started speaking out more about his administration’s efforts to quell rising costs. (On the other hand, Trump has also dismissed the affordability issue as a “scam” and recently said he wants to “drive housing prices up.”)

Democrats have hammered the president on the issue but not clearly defined their own plans to curb higher prices, Bonjean argued.

“The verdict’s out. There’s still a lot of Americans that would still like to see one party or the other really come through on an affordability message,” he said. “The affordability issue is going to be the major issue in the November election, and neither party has closed the sale on it with voters.”

Democrats already had a test run with the energy message in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial and Georgia utility commission elections in November, said Jesse Lee, senior adviser with climate advocacy organization Climate Power. Those races began as a “jump ball,” but Democratic candidates moved into the lead and secured victories when they hammered Republicans on energy prices, he said.

Lee said that Democrats will need to relentlessly “prosecute” the issue amid a crowded, chaotic political and media landscape. He said the party has coalesced around a message that Republicans blocked some new energy supplies when prices are rising.

“They do have to show some righteous anger and some urgent concern to show people that they understand what they’re going through,” Lee said.

The polling also revealed an enthusiasm gap on the matter for Republicans: Of those planning to vote Republican in the midterms, 58 percent felt they cared more about keeping costs low for households. Of those planning to vote for Democrats, 74 percent felt they cared more.

Americans of all stripes are feeling the pinch as electricity rates have surged in many states. Data from the Energy Department’s statistical arm, the Energy Information Administration, show residential electricity bills increased 12.7 percent since January 2025, when Trump returned to the White House. And costs are expected to keep rising: The EIA forecast higher electricity demand through 2027 even as the U.S. power grid struggles to add significant amounts of new power generation for needs such as a booming number of artificial intelligence data centers.

Democrats in Congress blame GOP attacks on clean energy for stoking an electricity affordability crisis. They say those actions by Trump and GOP lawmakers — including sunsetting Biden-era tax breaks and ordering halts to offshore wind farms already under construction — have stymied new sources of power that could lower costs.

The one bright spot for Trump is gasoline, whose price has fallen despite a desire by his oil and gas industry allies for higher prices that would encourage new production. The national retail gasoline price averaged $2.87 per gallon on Jan. 30 compared with $3.11 per gallon on that same date in 2025, according to AAA.

But that has given little comfort to voters, even for many Republicans, the poll showed.

The results revealed a schism between Trump hardliners — self-identified “MAGA Trump” — and those who support the president but don’t consider themselves part of the Make America Great Again base. Sixty-nine percent of “MAGA Trump” voters said Republicans cared more than Democrats about reducing energy costs, compared with 34 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters.

The construction of hundreds of energy-hungry data centers for AI is fueling many of the concerns about rising costs — and their development has drawn growing pushback in rural, Republican-leaning districts and liberal urban centers alike. Despite the backlash, the Trump administration has called securing investments for AI and data centers a national security and economic necessity.

Whether data centers are the main culprit for those increases is complicated and varies by region. Other factors — spending to upgrade the electric grid, maintenance and recovering from extreme weather — also push up rates, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an analysis performed for the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association representing investor-owned utilities.

People responding to the POLITICO Poll were mixed on what they think of data centers overall.

Thirty-seven percent said they “support” or “strongly support” allowing data centers within three miles of their home compared with 28 percent who “strongly oppose” or “oppose” them. Twenty-eight percent were indifferent, while 8 percent were unsure where they stood.

Yet responses started to shift when factoring in costs to electricity.

For people who backed data center projects, 62 percent would support one near their home even if it raised their energy bill by $5 a month. Fifty-two percent would be fine with a $10 rise.

That support fell to 39 percent if the cost reached $25 a month, with 48 percent opposing it at that price. At a $50 per month cost to households, 59 percent said they would oppose the projects.

For those who initially rejected or were unsure about data centers, electric bills would have to fall a lot to gain the respondents’ buy-in.

Monthly power bills would need to decline by $50 to get even a plurality — 40 percent — to support a project. At other monthly savings polled — $5, $10 and $25 — more of those people who did not initially back new, local data centers remained opposed rather than supportive of them.