Why Red States Are More Affordable Than Blue States
Kevin Stocklin /
Affordability has become the latest mantra for Democrats as they gear up for midterm elections. Yet, blue states lead the nation in driving up the cost of basic essentials like electricity and water, new studies say.
A recent report by the Institute for Energy Research, titled “Blue States, High Rates,” found that while average electricity prices across America increased by nearly 40% since 2021, Americans in left-leaning states paid significantly more than their conservative compatriots.
The report states that the vast majority of states with electricity prices above the national average are Democrat-led states. By contrast, red states comprised eight of the 10 states with the lowest electricity prices.
“Because of the Federal Power Act, the states have most of the discretion in terms of how they want to structure their electricity markets,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research and one of the study’s authors, told The Daily Signal. “We have seen over the past 10-15 years that typically blue states have high rates and red states, especially in the south and southeast, have much more reliable and affordable electricity for their ratepayers.”
The Federal Power Act, enacted in 1935, reserved authority to the states to set retail electricity prices and determine the mix of in-state power generation. In an attempt to control global temperatures, many Democrat-run states have used this authority to push wind and solar power and shutter coal, gas, and nuclear plants.
Regulations typically favored by states pursuing this agenda include renewable portfolio standards, energy efficiency resource standards, and clean energy standards, which are designed to increase solar and wind power and decrease the use of fossil fuels.
Proponents of wind and solar energy have claimed that these technologies will ultimately be a cheaper source of energy, but the reality has been the opposite due to, among other things, the backup systems required when the weather doesn’t cooperate.
“Wind and solar being cheaper is a total and complete myth,” Pyle said. “It may cost less to install initially, but when you factor in the challenges of grid management and the fact that you have to back up the intermittency with dispatchable generation, wind and solar is exorbitantly more expensive.”
These backup systems typically include gas, coal, or nuclear facilities that can be switched on when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Using these backup systems typically means constructing duplicate generation systems and building extensive new transmission lines to carry electricity from often remote sunny or windy locations to cities and towns.
“It’s a perfect storm of subsidizing unreliable generation sources that have to be backed up, and then at the same time eliminating or reducing coal plants, nuclear plants—things that have already been running reliably and are paid for already,” Pyle said.
Batteries have been proposed as the latest solution to the shortcomings of wind and solar power, but recent reports undermine this idea.
“Utility-scale batteries are not long-duration, dispatchable power sources; they are energy sinks that carry significant economic and environmental costs,” a December 2025 analysis by energy expert and former wind farm manager Lars Schernikau, published by the National Center for Energy Analytics, states.
According to Schernikau, batteries are significantly more expensive than alternatives and “most are designed to store chemical energy that can be extracted as electrical energy for one to four hours.”
The sum of these additional expenses are typically passed on to consumers in the form of higher electric bills, but a November 2025 report by the Century Foundations, a progressive think tank, states that Americans are increasingly unable to afford these costs.
“Nearly one in twenty households—equivalent to roughly 14 million Americans—have utility debt so severe that it was sent or soon will be sent to collections,” the report states. The average overdue balance on utility bills climbed from $597 to $789, a 32% increase since 2022.
“These policies are not sustainable in their current form, when driven by mandates and subsidies that distort markets,” Lora Myers, an energy economist at the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization focused on state-level policy.
“The core issue isn’t the technologies themselves, but the overreliance on top-down mandates like Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), net-zero emissions targets, and cap-and-trade programs,” Myers said. “These policies force utilities to prioritize intermittent renewables at the expense of a diverse generation mix, leading to higher electricity prices for consumers.”
In addition to electricity, a 2025 Utility Report by DoxoInsights, a data analytics firm, found that nine of the 10 states with the highest overall utility bills, including water, sewer, electricity, gas, and waste collection, were left-leaning states. The top ten most expensive states for these utilities were Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maine, and Vermont.
Myers says the key to affordability is for states to give more leeway to private industry.
“States should prioritize policies that foster energy abundance through market-driven innovation, diverse generation, and reduced regulatory burdens, ultimately lowering costs and improving reliability to support economic growth and higher living standards,” she said. “This means moving away from restrictive mandates which inflate prices by limiting choices and imposing artificial costs compared to open competition.”