With off-year election states hitting the voting booths on Tuesday, Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey have been hammering home a platform based on affordability messaging in the final stretch.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin emphasized Thursday how the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates running in 2025, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), have been “focused exclusively on affordability.”
Martin pointed to persisting inflation under the Trump administration, saying President Donald Trump’s economic policies are “hurting so many Americans right now.”
“They can barely put groceries on the table. The cost of housing is sky high. Inflation has not come down,” Martin said to reporters Thursday afternoon. “Mikie and Abigail have been focused relentlessly on making sure people can afford their lives.”
All three prominent Democratic candidates running in 2025, Spanberger, Sherrill, and Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral race, have centered their campaigns on affordability issues as the DNC also pushes this platform priority.
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“Virginia, my focus is clear. As your next Governor, I’ll get to work on Day One to lower costs across the Commonwealth,” Spanberger wrote on X on Thursday, accompanied by a video advertisement focused on her goals of lowering housing and healthcare costs.
The platform pages on both Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s websites have an affordability plan or agenda at the top that highlights how they plan to bring down housing, energy, and healthcare costs for their states.
“Costs are skyrocketing here, and the president’s making everything worse. So that’s why on day one I’m declaring a state of emergency on utility costs, using gubernatorial powers like no one else has done to freeze rate hikes and immediately start to drive down costs,” Sherrill said in an MSNBC interview Wednesday.
Inflation under Trump is lower than what it was during its peak under former President Joe Biden’s administration, decreasing to about 3% as of the end of September, compared to 9% in 2022. However, over the past year, inflation has increased 3% and prices have increased 9% on average following a monthslong tariff campaign.
Mamdani’s platform is based on the premise that “New York is too expensive. Zohran will lower costs and make life easier,” as his website reads. His socialist platform mobilized younger voters in the city as he highlighted affordability goals like city-owned grocery stores, free busing, and rent freezes.
For Spanberger, as she focuses on affordability, she has been quieter than her opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, on social issues. Earle-Sears has repeatedly blasted Spanberger for not being more vocal over controversial transgender policies in northern Virginia schools.
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But national Democratic leaders remain determined that affordability will help them in 2025. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters Thursday she believes the debate over affordability related to the Obamacare subsidies playing out as part of the government shutdown gridlock will have an impact on the 2025 elections.
“In terms of this issue, the healthcare issue, the cost of healthcare: They’re losing this fight,” Pelosi said, referring to Republicans. “In our campaigning, we have talked about healthcare being on the ballot with this. And I expect a big victory, not just a victory, a big victory, on Tuesday because people understand how this affects them.”
Gabrielle M. Etzel contributed to this story.
