Energy costs dominate midterm races as climate talk fades

Only two tossup Senate candidates mention climate change

The Wall Street Journal’s Climate & Energy newsletter, written by Ed Ballard in London, casts the 2026 midterms as “an energy election twice over” — a referendum on the Iran war and its impact on fuel prices, and a contest over data centers and worries that powering artificial intelligence will push up electricity bills. Pocketbook concerns dominate the conversation, the newsletter says, while climate change lurks in the background as worries mount about the cost of insurance.

The gap between energy’s salience and climate’s absence shows up most sharply in the Senate. Of the 14 candidates in races deemed tossups by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, just two mention “climate change” on their websites: Democrats James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

In Maine, half the state’s households use heating oil, which has risen in price 83% in a year, and winter heating season is approaching. Democrat Troy Jackson, trying to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins, blames the Iran war for the higher prices. Collins has sought to distance herself from President Trump on the war while blaming rising electric rates on policies Jackson pursued during his time as state senate president.

In Texas, Democratic hopeful Gina Hinojosa has hammered Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over data centers since noticing worries about power and water bills stirring local opposition last year. Abbott signed legislation more than 10 years ago giving tax breaks to data centers and has taken campaign donations from executives tied to AI. In September he imposed a moratorium on new permits; Hinojosa is calling for statewide legislation.

In Arizona, a recent survey suggested that water is voters’ top concern. Republican challenger Andy Biggs has questioned Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’s support for groundwater-conservation efforts, saying Arizona has abundant water underground and just needs better infrastructure to access it. He also criticized Hobbs’s handling of talks between U.S. states aimed at dividing up rights to the Colorado River. Hobbs, meanwhile, has run ads saying “Arizona’s water is for Arizonans.”

In Alaska, Mary Peltola — in a close race with Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan — is bidding to be the state’s first Democratic senator since 2015. Peltola favors speedier permitting to boost oil-and-gas production, more refining capacity in the state and tax credits for renewables. Sullivan warns that Democratic control of Congress would continue a “war against Alaska’s energy.”

Florida’s race to succeed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is being shaped by an insurance crisis as insurers retreat from the storm-prone state. Polls show Democrat David Jolly trailing Republican Byron Donalds. Jolly, who ties the crisis to climate change, is proposing a state-backed fund to remove hurricane and windstorm coverage from the private market. Donalds, whose website does not mention climate change, says Jolly’s plan is effectively a “hurricane tax” for homeowners.

In Texas, Jon Rosenthal has a shot at becoming the first Democrat in decades on the three-member Railroad Commission, which — owing to historical happenstance — has regulated the state’s energy industry for a century. Rosenthal favors stricter controls in the oil patch, including curbs on methane flaring and venting. He got a boost when GOP pick Bo French alienated some Republicans with a social-media post decrying a picture showing a crowd of nonwhite University of Texas students.

The newsletter also flagged a parallel policy shift in Washington: the Trump administration moved to weaken oil-and-gas methane emissions rules, with the EPA preparing to propose easing regulations for wells that emit large amounts of methane and scrapping a program to identify large methane leaks. Doing so meets a key demand of some of the administration’s oil-and-gas allies.

Further down the ballot, several Farm Belt Republicans are promoting the blending of more corn ethanol in gasoline as a response to the fuel crisis — a step environmental groups say would drive deforestation and more emissions. Georgia, a data-center hot spot, has two seats up on its utility regulator, and if Democrats prevail, control flips. Insurance commissioners will also be picked in states dealing with affordability crises caused by weather-related losses, including California (wildfires) and Oklahoma (hail).

The pocketbook stakes reach beyond the ballot box. Oil exports from the Persian Gulf have rebounded significantly, the newsletter reported, yet oil prices are still above $100 a barrel eight months into the war with Iran. “What is the price of oil? Eight months into the war with Iran, what should be a straightforward question has become surprisingly hard to answer,” said Natasha Kaneva, head of the global commodities strategy team at JPMorgan.

Retired wind turbines have also become a new source of rare earths. With the U.S. trying to reduce its reliance on China for rare-earth metals, a few ventures are betting that the quickest route to new supply goes through the junkyard. For one such company, Paladin EnviroTech, retired wind turbines — whose room-size generators in some cases house huge rare-earth magnets — are the No. 1 target. Some more recent models contain rare earths worth close to $100,000, Paladin estimates.

The newsletter also highlighted a British startup, Rivan Industries, which is working on a system to split hydrogen from water and capture carbon dioxide directly from the air before combining them to make methane, a cleaner substitute for natural gas. Rivan is one of several companies betting they can make green fuels cost-effective by doing everything under one roof.

Elsewhere, columnist Christopher Mims drove a 2027 Chevy Bolt from Nashville to New Orleans on the least EV-friendly route he could find, after readers challenged him to test America’s cheapest electric vehicle in the charging desert of the Deep South. The trip turned out to be only a little less convenient than it would have been in a gas vehicle, the newsletter reported.

And a share of the world’s refining capacity for gasoline, diesel and other fuels is now offline after drone and missile strikes in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the U.A.E., according to Industrial Info Resources. Trump has been grasping for ways to lower fuel prices ahead of the midterms, the newsletter said, but his diesel deal with Russia would barely make a dent.