Trump's megabill triumph has Democrats eyeing the ‘high ground' on energy prices
'It's tough for the Democrats because they've made climate their energy priority for decades,' said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former aide to then-Sen. Marco Rubio who is a partner at Firehouse Strategies. 'Voters associate liberals with prioritizing climate change over energy affordability.'
Also inconvenient for the Democrats is the fact that oil prices are hovering near four-year lows, GOP strategist Ford O'Connell said. So even if Democrats cling to a message that Republican policies raise energy prices, he said, those price hikes are unlikely to show up in the real world before the midterms.
'That's just something that Democrats keep saying over and over, but it's just not going to be true because the argument defies gravity,' O'Connell said.
Blaming Republicans for future energy price increases is 'too abstract,' said David Victor, an expert on climate change and energy markets who works as a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California San Diego. He added that for people who simply believe that green energy is expensive, the Democratic counterargument will be drowned out.
'People don't believe it,' he said. 'All kinds of claims are being made.'
Try, try again
The Democrats' plans to seize on the energy argument is part of a larger effort to hammer Republicans over projections that the megabill will steer huge tax breaks to the wealthy while kicking millions of poorer Americans off Medicaid.
It also recognizes the new realities of the U.S. energy markets, including the rise of AI data centers and the fact that U.S. power consumption is moving up after almost 20 years of nearly flat demand.
Democrats believe the time is ripe to revive the call to speed the growth of wind and solar power — and bash the Republicans for taking the green power incentives off the table. They also contend that Trump's law will spike power prices by making renewable electricity more expensive.
'We're going to need to build assets for a growing grid. Choosing not to build things is fucking stupid,' Rep. Sean Casten (D-Illinois) said.
Castor agreed with the messaging approach, adding that her Tampa-area constituents are already well aware of how climate change is affecting their lives. But when she talks to them about what's at stake in the Capitol and the White House, she said she focuses on 'higher costs, higher electric bills.'
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