In New Jersey, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill turned a hard-fought gubernatorial race against Republican Jack Ciattarelli into a 13-percentage-point blowout Tuesday with a pledge to freeze soaring electricity rates…
Some analysts cautioned against overstating the importance of electricity issues. Expressing discontent with President Donald Trump was a major factor in Tuesday’s results, said Clint Andrews, director of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University. Concerns over electricity rates were part of wider voter angst over pocketbook issues like the cost of housing and health insurance.
“It is the affordability election,” he said. “Electricity is a subset of that.”
But for Democrats, who have spent much of the last year in the throes of an identity crisis, Tuesday’s victories supplied the outlines of a message they think can carry them to victory in next year’s midterm elections.