Who Is Worried About Energy Affordability, and Who Will Act?

Key Takeaways

• Nationally, 55% of voters modeled as worried about energy affordability are low-turnout voters, compared with 36% of all registered voters.

• Across three Ohio congressional districts, roughly three in ten voters in the Energy Affordability Worried audience fell into the Swing category, and about one in five were Low Turnout Swing.

• Among Low Turnout Swing voters in this audience, about one in seven are modeled as supporting fossil fuels alone. Roughly half support both fossil fuels and renewables, or neither.

Energy Affordability is Not One Audience

The voters most worried about their energy bills are disproportionately the voters least likely to cast a ballot.

Nationally, Causeway models about 95 million voters, 43.7% of all registered voters, as worried about energy affordability. More than half of them (55.4%) are low-turnout voters. Among all registered voters, that figure is 36.1%. In Ohio, the pattern holds: 3.3 million voters are in the audience, and 47.9% of them are low-turnout voters, compared with 30.8% of all registered voters in Ohio.

That makes energy affordability both a persuasion question and a turnout question. Answering either one starts with a modeled issue audience: voters worried about energy costs. From there, size that audience within the geography that matters, then examine how it breaks down by partisan lean, turnout, and what these voters actually want done about energy. Looking at those signals together provides a more complete picture than the issue model alone.

OH-09 has about 25,600 fewer voters than OH-07, yet its modeled Energy Affordability Worried audience is about 38,200 larger. Same model, same question. The geography and the electorate within it did the rest.

A plan built on universe size alone would treat these districts as relatively similar, or even give the edge to OH-07. On this issue, the modeled audiences point the other way.

What's Inside the Issue Audience?

Audience size answers one question. Audience composition answers another.

Partisan lean. Swing voters represented 30.3% of the modeled audience in OH-07, 29.8% in OH-09 and 28.6% in OH-13. The rest of the partisan composition changed. Hard Republicans represented 24.4% of the audience in OH-07, while Hard Democrats represented 26.8% in OH-09 and 32.4% in OH-13.

Turnout. Low-turnout voters represented 43.3% of the modeled audience in OH-07, 48.9% in OH-09 and 49.4% in OH-13.

In all three districts, roughly one in five voters in the Energy Affordability Worried audience fell into the Low Turnout Swing category. That matches Ohio statewide (21.1%) and sits well above the national figure (14.1%).

The district gap shows up here too. OH-09 has about 9,500 more Low Turnout Swing voters in this audience than OH-07, despite having about 25,600 fewer voters overall.

That doesn't mean every voter in this group is persuadable, nor does it establish how an individual would respond to a particular message. Issue attitude, partisan lean and turnout are separate modeled characteristics. For a campaign or advocacy effort, though, this group raises a persuasion question and a turnout question at the same time. Treating everyone concerned about an issue as one audience would hide that.

Worried About the Bill, Not the Source

Shared concern about energy costs does not mean shared views on energy policy.

Across Ohio's Energy Affordability Worried audience, 31% are modeled as supporting fossil fuels (natural gas or oil) but not renewables, and 36% as supporting renewables but not fossil fuels. The audience leans toward one camp or the other on energy source.

Low Turnout Swing voters look different. Only 13.5% are modeled as supporting fossil fuels alone. About half (50.4%) are modeled as supporting both fossil fuels and renewables (19.4%), or neither (31.0%). The national pattern is nearly identical.

For the audience that raises both a persuasion and a turnout question, the energy source may not be what they are weighing. The bill may be. That suggests a message built around which energy source is better may speak past them, while one built around what they pay each month may not.

From Audience Model to Audience Plan

At Causeway, we built this analysis in Audience Builder. It starts with a modeled characteristic such as Energy Affordability Worried, sizes the resulting audience by geography in real time and breaks it down across partisan lean, turnout and other characteristics. Those audience definitions then carry consistently into planning, activation and measurement.

Inside a single issue audience, that breakdown points to different jobs:

• Low Turnout Swing voters need a reason to show up as much as a reason to choose. Cost-of-living framing tied to a concrete stake in the election is a natural test.

• Low-turnout partisans already lean one way. The work is mobilization, not persuasion.

• High-turnout voters will likely vote regardless. Here the question is persuasion and reinforcement, and energy-source messaging may land differently depending on which camp they sit in.

The same breakdown applies beyond elections. For an advocacy effort, the district counts become a case to put in front of a legislator: in OH-09, 226,568 constituents are modeled as worried about energy affordability. The turnout signal becomes a question about who will take action, since voters who rarely show up to vote are often the hardest to move to call an office or attend a hearing. And the energy-source split points to how a coalition might hold together: an ask framed around what people pay can reach supporters of both fossil fuels and renewables, where an ask framed around the source of the power risks dividing them.

The question isn't simply whether an issue audience exists in a district. It's what that audience is made of, and what it would take to move each part of it.

Methodology note: These are modeled audiences, not direct survey responses. "Energy Affordability Worried" identifies voters whose characteristics indicate a higher likelihood of concern about energy affordability based on Causeway's modeling. Counts reflect Causeway's modeled audiences as of September 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are voters worried about energy affordability more likely to be low-turnout voters?
In Causeway's modeling, yes. Nationally, 55.4% of the Energy Affordability Worried audience are low-turnout voters, compared with 36.1% of the full electorate. In Ohio, the figures are 47.9% and 30.8%.

What share of voters worried about energy affordability are low-turnout Swing voters?
In Causeway's analysis of three Ohio congressional districts, roughly one in five voters in the Energy Affordability Worried audience fell into the Low Turnout Swing category, ranging from 20.8% to 21.8%. Statewide in Ohio the share is 21.1%; nationally it is 14.1%.

Do voters worried about energy affordability agree on energy policy?
No. In Ohio, about 31% of the audience are modeled as supporting fossil fuels but not renewables, and 36% as supporting renewables but not fossil fuels. Among Low Turnout Swing voters in the audience, about half support both or neither.

How do you identify potential persuasion audiences?
One approach is to begin with a relevant issue or attitudinal model, size that audience within the geography that matters, and then examine additional characteristics such as partisan lean, modeled turnout and related policy views. Those signals provide more context than the issue model alone.

Is a Swing voter the same as a persuadable voter?
No. A Swing classification describes modeled partisan lean. It does not independently establish that a voter is persuadable or predict how that individual will respond to a particular message.