By Makini Brice and Moira Warburton
(Reuters) – From the suburbs of New York to rural Montana, U.S. congressional candidates are clashing with voters worried about skyrocketing home prices, according to interviews with Democratic and Republican campaigns and Reuters/Ipsos polling.
During campaign rallies in his New York State constituency, Democratic U.S. Congressman Pat Ryan said in an interview that people often complain that they have trouble finding an affordable house or apartment. He is trying to keep his seat, one of dozens of close races his party must win in the Nov. 5 elections if it wants to win a majority in the House of Representatives.
“I would say that right now … across the region — the Hudson Valley north of New York City — the biggest point of economic pain and pressure is housing affordability,” said Ryan, who wants money from the Democratic President Joe Biden$1 trillion infrastructure bill to support housing construction.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in May found that voters ranked the scarcity and high cost of housing as their second-biggest economic concern, after fears of stagnant incomes and rising prices.
Economic concerns are also central to the battle between Biden and Republican challenger Donald Trump. The winner’s ability to enact his agenda will depend in part on who controls Congress.
Home prices nationwide have risen about 50 percent in the past five years, with rents increasing 35 percent, according to real estate brokerage Zillow. In Kingston, New York, about 100 miles (160 km) north of New York City and partly in Ryan’s district, home values have risen 75 percent while rents have increased 58 percent over that period.
Data from the Atlanta Fed shows the average U.S. home will require 12% more of household income in 2023 than in 2019, compared with a 1.3% increase over the previous four years.
While household incomes have risen, the cost of housing and inflation-driven increases in the price of food and other basic necessities have wiped out those gains, leaving some families living in fear of not being able to keep a roof over their heads.
“There is no question that housing prices have become unaffordable for many,” said Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro, whose New York district is considered one of the tightest in the country by independent analysts.
SWING STATE-SPIN
According to Zillow, metro areas in half a dozen of the most competitive states in November — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — saw an average rent increase of 44% between 2019 and 2024.
In Nevada, Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen, who is running for re-election, ran a campaign ad saying, “We’ve got to do something about the cost of housing. Housing in Nevada has to be affordable for Nevada families.”
Her Republican rival, U.S. Army veteran Sam Brown, called on social media for loosening regulations to speed up housing construction and offering tax breaks to individual home buyers.
Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat running for reelection, told Reuters she wants to impose a tax on investors who own more than 15 single-family homes. These buyers have bought and resold homes at dramatically inflated prices. Tax revenue would help build and maintain affordable housing.
Eric Hovde, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination to challenge Baldwin, said in an online video that immigration is making high housing prices worse.
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the chamber, has identified housing affordability as a key issue in his bid to fend off a challenge from Republican Tim Sheehy.
Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring independent Kyrsten Sinema, attributed his state’s housing crisis to stagnant wages, expensive materials, a shortage of construction workers and wealthy retirees moving to the state.
His Republican rival, Kari Lake, also claimed that immigration is contributing to the housing crisis.
At the federal level, Biden has proposed building and preserving more than 2 million homes and creating a tax credit for first-time home buyers, but Congress has not taken up those plans.
In January, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill expanding the tax deduction for public housing, but the bill has stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Mike Atkin, 66, once owned a home in Suffern, New York, but lost it in a divorce and was homeless for about two years.
Atkin now lives in a senior studio apartment after winning the lottery. He considered voting for Ryan, the Democrat, and housing will play a role in his decision. “I want to vote for people who want to address this issue,” he said.
Slingshot Strategies political strategist Alyssa Cass, a Democrat who worked on Ryan’s previous campaign, said any candidate who doesn’t talk about housing “within the first five minutes” is doomed to failure.
“In focus group after focus group, this is what they care about … ‘I can’t afford a house,'” Cass said. “How can someone feel good about their economic situation if their housing is in crisis?”
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Moira Warburton, additional reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Scott Malone and Cynthia Osterman)
