Read my latest @atmosmag.bsky.social newsletter, The Understory: t.co/fXekfY321Z

Tuesday’s elections show that Democrats and environmental activists are taking a page out of Republicans’ playbook to champion an issue that could be a litmus test for the 2026 midterm elections: the price of electricity.

In GA, 2 open Public Service Commission seats flipped blue. It was the first time since 2000 that a Dem has won a PSC race in the state.

The PSC is an under-followed government body that wields outsized authority when it comes to setting electricity $

In VA, @abigailspanberger.com won the governor’s race after pushing back on her state’s rising number of data centers—VA has the most in the country, and nearly double the next state—and challenging skyrocketing electricity prices due to demand from those data centers.

In NJ , Democratic @mikiesherrill.bsky.social beat her Republican challenger for governor with an affordability agenda that included a freeze on new rate increases and a speeding up of approvals for solar energy projects.

(Rates this summer rose 22% from last year.)

Candidates in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia who ran on platforms of electricity affordability won across the board Tuesday.

In NY @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social won the mayor’s race w more than 50% of the vote and a campaign that centered climate change in a affordability plan

First dispatch includes a recent wildfire burn scar — and a long detour around the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, closed after another recent fire: www.azcentral.com/story/news/l...

Aaron I’m so sad to see this but so glad your kid is ok.

Hi, wrong Miranda Green! I cover us politics!

You can read more about these threads, what dog whistles to look out for and why it's happening now in my most recent newsletter The Understory, at @atmosmag.bsky.social

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Wind criticisms have since coalesced around a strikingly similar playbook, sowing doubt and providing kindling for skeptics.

Have you heard about right whale die offs tied to wind?-- there's no scientific evidence.

How about wind posing a nat sec risk?

What's important to follow here, is the why and how these agencies are attacking off-shore wind.

The WHY is that plainly, wind is bad for the gas industry.

And the gas industry has been a heavy-handed donor to Trump

The HOW is in part, misinformation.

Interesting timing right?

Well, turns out, it was VERY coordinated.

The WH ordered six agencies to escalate the fight against offshore wind--HHS, DOD, DOE, EPA, Interior and Commerce.

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Three days later, the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it was halting work on a Rhode Island offshore wind project that was 80% complete.

A week afterwards Transportation Sec Sean Duffy withdrew $679 million in grants earmarked for 12 other wind projects

He lost his legal battle. The Scottish wind project was completed in 2018 and is expected to produce more than 70% of Aberdeen’s domestic electricity needs.

But Trump’s ire toward the towering turbines festered, following him the WH.

In August he lashed out on Truth Social.

3 years before Trump would win his first election, he furiously penned at least 16 separate letters in green ink decrying what he argued would be an eyesore and waste of money: offshore wind.

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