"Affordability" Should Be A Winning Issue For Republicans
/In a post back in January, commenting on the November 2025 off-year elections, I remarked that the buzz-word of the moment for the Democrats appeared to be “affordability.” Many credited that theme as being the winning issue that took the Virginia and New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidates (Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill) over the top.
And yet the policies that Spanberger and Sherrill had advocated as the centerpieces of their “affordability” agendas were taken from the playbooks of California and New York, otherwise known as the leading states for intentionally driving up costs for their residents. Anybody could see that California and New York were among the most expensive states for the biggest items on the “affordability” list, particularly energy and housing. And yet Spanberger and Sherrill had succeeded by endless repetition of the bare word “affordability,” without any coherent explanation of how following California’s policies would somehow lead to a different result than what had befallen California.
So now we are in the long run-up to the 2026 midterms. From what I can observe in races near me, it looks like the “affordability” mantra is the central plank of all the candidates of the Democratic Party.
Whether or not there is any substance to the claim, repetition of the word “affordability” must poll well. Writing at Real Clear Politics on Tuesday (June 9), Batya Ungar-Sargon calls “affordability” the “issue that should terrify Republicans.” Ms. Ungar-Sargon points out that the congressional Democrats are cooking up some kind of razzle-dazzle “affordability” bill to be the centerpiece of their 2026 midterm campaign:
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Monday that the first bill of a House Democratic majority will concentrate on lowering costs. Jeffries send a letter to all House Democrats announcing five working groups focused on developing affordability legislation targeting housing, gas and utilities, groceries, caregiving, and health care.
But what exactly is Jeffries or any other Democrat proposing to do that would somehow drive prices down and improve affordability for average Americans? They say that they will have “working groups” to study the issues. But what bright and original ideas might the working groups come up with? As I noted in my January post, there are really only two policy alternatives for trying to achieve this holy grail of “affordability”: (1) the classic Democratic approach, which is a combination of government edicts (e.g., ordering prices to be lower) and subsidies, or (2) the classic free market approach, which is that the government minimizes taxes and regulations but otherwise relies on the forces of competition drive prices as low as possible. Approach (1) inevitably drives costs and thus prices higher. Approach (2) is imperfect, but it’s the best we can do. The fundamental reason that the United States delivers to its citizens the highest ratio in the world of per capita income to price of goods (that is, “affordability”) is that, more than anywhere else, we follow approach (2).
But consider the race now under way in my district for the New York State Assembly. Our incumbent member of the State Assembly, a Democrat, has held the seat for some 35 years; but she has announced her retirement. That leaves an open seat, which has attracted a large number of candidates. The seat is a super-safe one for the Democrats, and indeed the incumbent has had no Republican opposition in many elections over these last several decades. Thus all the action is in the primary, which will be held on June 23, with ten days of early voting starting on June 13.
Six candidates are vying for the Democratic nomination. Every one of them claims to be the candidate of “affordability.” Every one of them claims to be the candidate of affordability in housing, and to have some solutions to the issue that are unique and different. In case you don’t know, our district is one of the most expensive for housing, not only in New York City and New York State, but also in the entire country. It has come to that position after nearly a century of New York City housing policies that have controlled rents, punished landlords, and made building difficult. So what do these people propose? Double down! I’ll give you some excerpts from some of the websites:
From Jeannine Kiely: “I will fight for both affordability and availability by tackling our housing supply crisis head-on. I will support new housing, prioritize 100% affordable housing on government-owned land and focus on building coalitions statewide.” It’s the usual magical thinking. “100% affordable housing on government-owned land” means that the small amount of government-owned land in our district get subsidized apartments built on it. The land here is worth at least $1 million per apartment that can be built, which means that the lucky lottery winners who get the apartments get a $1 million subsidy each. In what sense is this “affordable”? They simply ignore the enormous costs to the taxpayers who don’t get to live in these subsidized places.
From Ben Yee: “State Land for Affordable Housing. Any state land, or land in which the State has an interest through an Authority, should be required to be a minimum of 50% affordable. Affordable Housing Fund. A new, dedicated lockbox for funding high-density, affordable housing in New York State in areas within commuter distance of economic hubs funded by vacancy and pied-a-terre taxes.” Again, it’s the giveaway of state land without recognizing the huge cost to the taxpayers who don’t get in on the giveaway, combined with new taxes and subsidies.
From Ryder Kessler: “We need to lower the price of housing, energy, childcare, and healthcare so New Yorkers are free to live and age where we want—without being rent-burdened, displaced, or pushed out of the city altogether, and without being forced into impossible choices about care for our families.” No specifics on how he would accomplish this, but his entire playbook consists of more regulations, taxes, and subsidies.
For the foreseeable future, it looks like we will get a continuation of counter-productive housing policies that will only drive the cost of housing here higher. I don’t think that a Republican will win here any time soon, but at least Republicans elsewhere can point to this incompetence and its results as a lesson to be learned.