New Jersey’s insane electric bills could cost Dems the state

When my friend Rebecca in Highland Park, NJ, opened her PSE&G gas and electric bill last month, she almost fell out of her seat: It had tripled. 

It’s now costing her more than $1,000 a month to keep her modest home running.

“It’s been creeping up for months, in spite of the fact that nothing about our house has changed,” she told me. “In years past, it was averaging about $300 a month.”

“I don’t know how we’re expected to absorb these new bills,” she posted on Facebook.

Her neighbor Felix Urman wondered the same as he ticked off his household costs for me. 

“Property taxes are up 6.3%,” he said — on top of what had already been the nation’s highest. 

“Car insurance up 15%. Home insurance up 17%. Health insurance up 19%. 

“I don’t know how non-dermatologists are living in New Jersey,” he concluded.

That question — how are we expected to live here? — is why the solidly blue Garden State is rapidly turning purple.

Affordability and taxes, at 54% and 43% respectively, have become the defining issues in New Jersey’s tightening governor’s race. 

The latest survey, released this week, showed Democratic Party nominee Mikie Sherrill leading Republican Jack Ciattarelli by just 6 percentage points.

Those who ranked affordability as their primary issue were split over which candidate is better equipped to handle it: 36% of them named Sherrill, while 34% chose Ciattarelli. 

But on taxes, Ciattarelli holds a commanding lead. When asked which candidate would do a better job lowering them, 50% picked the Republican, compared to just 15% who went for the Democrat.

It’s clear New Jersey residents have lost confidence in their Democratic lawmakers when it comes to tax policy.

Once they realize that Democrats’ bungled energy policies are to blame for their exploding utility bills as well, it could blow November’s race wide open.

“They took generation off before they brought generation on,” one energy expert told me, pointing to the state’s aggressive shutdown of coal-powered plants under Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and the closure of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in 2018. 

The result? A shrinking energy supply, at a time when demand is exploding.

Dan Lockwood, a spokesperson for PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator, explained the problem plainly to the New Jersey Monitor. 

“These higher prices are the result of a loss in electricity supply caused primarily by decarbonization policies that have led to an uptick in generator retirements,” Lockwood said.

On top of that came “an unprecedented spike in electricity demand,” he added, due to burgeoning AI data centers and the increasing use of “green” technologies like electric vehicles and appliances.

In short: the state is using more electricity than ever before, after legislators systematically dismantled the infrastructure that used to provide it.

And the New Jersey lawmakers who championed these green policies as bold and forward-thinking left regular families to foot the bill. 

Adding insult to injury, they apparently thought a $30 rebate would make a difference. 

“If you just opened your July electric bill and noticed a $30 ‘credit,’ don’t be fooled — it’s not relief,” state Assemblyman Alex Sauickie snarked last week in Central Jersey Newswire. 

“It’s a failed rebate scheme from Gov. Phil Murphy and the Democrat-controlled Legislature. It was designed to distract you.” 

“That’s not help,” Sauickie scoffed. “That’s an insult . . . a Band-Aid over a bullet hole.”

No one prepared the grid for this transition. No one told Rebecca or Felix that their bills would quietly triple while they were busy chauffeuring kids to camp and grocery shopping for dinner. 

The policymakers pushed the policies, but didn’t build the safety net, or the replacement energy sources, first.

Instead, families face a double squeeze. Their bills are rising, and so are the taxes funding the very lawmakers who forced costs up. 

Voters are rightly asking: What am I getting in return for this crushing cost of living?

The answer, so far, is not much.

Rebecca’s story is hardly unique. Families across the state are considering relocating, cutting their budgets to the bone, or simply skipping utility payments and hoping for the best. 

That’s not how it should be in one of the wealthiest states in the country.

This isn’t about politics, it’s about survival. And as New Jersey’s election heats up, candidates who ignore the pain of middle-class families do so at their peril. 

The bills are real. The frustration is growing.

And the demand for accountability is rising along with the utility costs.

Voters are watching, and they’re not buying the excuses anymore.

Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars.