• Electricity costs in the U.S. rose 6.7% in December from a year earlier and are up about 38% since 2020.

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Electricity-cost increases are outpacing other kinds of inflation, vaulting utility bills into the political discourse across the U.S. ahead of the midterm elections.

Trump administration officials gathered at the White House Friday with a group that included the governors of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia to push the nation’s largest grid operator to hold an emergency power auction. They want the U.S.’s biggest technology companies to bring their own power supplies or cover the cost for new power-plant construction to stem concerns that their data centers are driving up electricity prices for everyday Americans.

Data centers are getting much of the blame for soaring power costs. Governors and senators of all political stripes are piling into debates over proposed rate increases, seizing on the issue as a point of consumer pain.

Electricity costs in the U.S. rose 6.7% in December from a year earlier and are up about 38% since 2020, according to Labor Department data. Consumer prices rose 2.7% in December more broadly.

“We can’t take it anymore,” Republican Gov. Mike Braun said in September when he directed Indiana’s consumer advocate to evaluate utility profits in the state.

Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills called a requested electricity rate increase “out of touch” before encouraging state utility regulators to dismiss the proposal. They took that advice in November, though a revamped request is expected this year.

“Families across Missouri are struggling to pay their bills,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley wrote in a letter to a utility CEO in October. His concerns included rate increases and ensuring that residential customers don’t pick up the tab for large, power-guzzling new data centers.

Energy provider Ameren Missouri said its residential rates are among the lowest in the country but that it understands Hawley’s concerns and that “rising household costs are a real challenge.” A new Missouri law tries to ensure that large customers cover the grid costs they cause.

Gasoline prices—often the most-talked-about consumer energy cost—have dropped about 9% since January 2024 to $2.84 a gallon for the regular unleaded variety, according to AAA.

The combination of an already-oversupplied oil market and U.S. efforts to potentially bring Venezuelan oil to the U.S. for refining could continue to tamp down those costs for drivers. 

Electricity costs, meanwhile, have moved higher in recent years for a variety of reasons. The replacement of aging equipment, rebuilding following storms and fires, and state renewable-energy plans are among factors that have played a role in rising rates, according to a study led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Consumption also swings with weather. Variable fuel costs push bills higher or lower.

Quick fixes are challenging, but Americans are inflation-weary and it is an election year.

For utilities, 2026 appears to be a tough time to file for a rate increase, said John Bartlett, president of Reaves Asset Management, which invests in the sector. He expects electricity costs to feature in many of the 36 states with governor’s races this year, though he noted that governors aren’t in charge of all of the factors that play into electricity prices, including one of the key inputs: the cost of natural gas.

Most state utility commissions are appointed, but of the 10 that are elected, nine have elections this year, said Charles Hua, executive director of PowerLines, a nonprofit that advocates for utility customers. 

Commission races don’t often garner much attention, but those regulators directly oversee utility rates. Hua expects potentially contentious contests this year in Arizona, Louisiana and Georgia. Affordability and data centers have been an issue in all three, and Georgia voters ousted two incumbent commissioners in November.

One question with utility bills is how costs are shared.

“Which costs should fall onto you and me as residential consumers, and which costs should fall onto large commercial customers like tech companies or large industrial customers like manufacturing plants?” Hua asked.

The president said on social media that Microsoft would “ensure that Americans don’t ‘pick up the tab’ for their power consumption.”

“The general rule is if the price goes up at the pump for gasoline or at the meter for electricity, then the incumbent doesn’t get re-elected,” said Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston. “That would be any incumbent, Democrat or Republican.”

Hirs, though, said many of the factors that have set higher electricity prices into motion have been unfolding for years. That is especially true in competitive electricity markets where he says power producers haven’t had a financial incentive to invest sufficient capital into plant maintenance or new construction but new power generation is now needed.