Will the 2026 midterms be about affordability?
Before the recent riots in Minnesota inspired by radical anti-Trump protesters, and before the discovery of perhaps over $9 billion of welfare fraud by shady nonprofits and purported daycares, all anyone could talk about is “affordability.” In fact, many experts attributed Democrats’ dramatic overperformance in the 2025 election to the Trump administration failing to deliver on affordability. Indeed, Democrats have drawn their lines in the sand for the midterm elections: They are going to run on protecting criminal illegal immigrants from deportation and the idea that prices are too high.
In one respect, Democrats are right. Prices remain too high in many circles. However, Democrats are coming woefully short in providing solutions for problems that are largely of their own making, and the fact is that, in many important ways, Republican policies are substantially improving affordability. If the 2026 midterms are about this issue, Republicans should win, going away. The Trump administration is fixing problems with sound policy that a reckless Biden administration left them. Meanwhile, Democrats at every level have opposed polices that will make life more affordable.
In Bucks County, Democrats have been slowly gaining control of municipalities and school boards over the past decade. After the 2023 election, Democrats took over the Central Bucks and Pennridge School Districts. The effects of this political shift were immediate. Property owners were saddled with higher property taxes. Central Bucks property owners have seen their millage increase from 122.96 in the 2023-24 tax year to 146.55 in 2025-26, an increase of 19 percent. Travelling up Route 313 to Pennridge, the story is similar. The Republican-controlled school board had kept taxes steady since 2015-2016. In 2024, after a historic victory, Democrats took over the board and, predictably, a 3.65-percent tax increase followed in 2025.
At the county level, the story is similar. Democrats took over county government and half the row offices in 2020, inheriting a millage rate of 25.45. For the second time in six years, Bucks residents are facing a county tax increase. The 2026 tax millage is 29.65, an increase of 16.5 percent in six years. The county tax increase only compounds the effects of the school district tax increases and does nothing to improve the affordability crises.
Local property taxes are partly a result of the compounding effects of bad federal policy. The affordability crises truly began during the Biden administration with congressional Democrats passed the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act and masked their inflationary green policies under the Inflation Reduction Act. According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget, the American Rescue Plan added $1.9 trillion of federal spending over a ten-year period, while the “Inflation Reduction” Act added another approximately $891 billion. This compounded federal spending, increased deficits, created more debt and had no appreciable effect on reducing the inflation that capped out near nine percent in the Biden administration. The inflation Biden’s treasury secretary called, “transitory” actually averaged approximately five annually. Since everything was more expensive, state and local governments also had to pay more to deliver their services.
Republicans inherited an affordability problem created by bad Democratic policies. Now in the minority, Democrats conveniently forget history. In fact, as health care premiums rise under the also ironically named “Affordable” Care Act, they blame Republicans for not offering a solution to a problem Democrats created a decade and a half ago. No Republican voted for the ACA and Democrats have opposed attempts to reform it. Meanwhile, from 2013 to 2025, health insurance premiums increased a staggering 133 percent. Likewise, Democrats have opposed every attempt to reduce spending and rescind wasteful programs. Every dollar of deficit spending decreases the purchasing power of every American, and Americans in the lowest income tiers feel it the most.
In the last year, there has been a marked improvement in affordability. In Bucks County, the price of gas is averaging around $3 a gallon, and it’s not uncommon to find it for less. Four years ago, gas was on its way to over $5 per gallon due to a toxic mix of disastrous energy and foreign policies. A year ago, a dozen eggs cost over $5, and now they can be found for under $2. Interest rates and mortgage rates are down about fifteen percent. While housing costs remain stubbornly high, the administration is looking for market-based solutions to bring costs down by increasing supply. A good start would be raising the capital gains exemption on the sale of a personal residence so that boomers looking to leave their homes may avoid paying taxes on the gains they have earned over their lifetimes. There was great fear that President Donald Trump’s tariffs would spike inflation, but overall inflation has remained below expectations. Any analysis on affordability would be incomplete without acknowledging that the One Big Beautiful Bill eliminated taxes on tips and overtime, which directly helps working Americans. The bill also prevented the largest tax increase in American history, which would have shrunk the economy.
If the 2026 midterms are to be a referendum on affordability, Republicans should double down on policies that improve economic opportunity and continue to unleash productivity in the energy, domestic manufacturing, and agriculture sectors. From the county to the federal level, Democrats’ only answer to “affordability” is to spend more. The true question is whether voters will look at the real record, or if riots and rage will rule Election Day 2026.
Don Petrille is an attorney and served as Bucks County’s register of wills from 2012 until 2020.
