Your air conditioner is doing historic work this weekend. The grid that powers it is forecast to break a demand record that has stood since 2006, and every hour of that hum is going onto a bill that arrives this month. [2][4] Which makes this the right weekend to check a promise that came with its own deadline.
Campaigning in October 2024, Donald Trump told voters: "12 months from January 20, your electric bill...the total electric bill will be 50, 5-0 per cent, less." He repeated it as a nationwide pledge: "your energy bill within 12 months will be cut in half. That's my pledge, all over the country." [1] The deadline he chose was January 20, 2026. It passed five months ago.
THE CLAIM "12 months from January 20, your electric bill...the total electric bill will be 50, 5-0 per cent, less"
- Donald Trump, campaign remarks, Detroit, October 2024 [1]
What your bill actually did
Household electric bills did not fall 50 percent. They did not fall at all. Bills rose 6.7 percent across 2025, with electricity prices up 11 percent from January through September; in Washington they rose 23 percent, in Indiana 17, in Illinois 15. [1] Natural gas, which sets the price of power in much of the country, ran more than 50 percent above the prior year's average, and wholesale electricity jumped 45 to 60 percent in some regions. [3]
This summer is worse. Keeping a home cool from June through September now costs about $800, up 10.5 percent from last year - a record. [2] Before the season even peaked, 21.5 million households, one in six, were already behind on their energy bills, and almost one in three - more than 80 million Americans - report struggling to pay them. [2][3]
Data
| Household bills, 2025 | 6.7% |
|---|---|
| Summer cooling, 2026 | 10.5% |
| Washington DC, 2025 | 23% |
This weekend, on your meter
The heat dome pushing the East past 100 degrees is driving the PJM grid - 67 million people across 13 states - toward an all-time record peak, past the 165,563 megawatts that have stood as the ceiling since 2006. [4] Emergency federal orders are letting plants run past their pollution limits through July 3, and the wholesale price spikes that come with grid emergencies flow into variable-rate bills. [4] The pledge was that by now, all of this would cost you half as much. You are living the test this weekend, meter by meter.
THE RECEIPTS
- The pledge: bills 50 percent lower by January 20, 2026 - his own date. [1]
- The result: bills UP 6.7 percent across 2025; DC up 23 percent. [1]
- This summer: a record $800 to stay cool, up 10.5 percent; 21.5 million households already behind. [2]
- The government's own "Promises Made, Promises Kept" energy page talks about gasoline - and says nothing about your electric bill. [5]
The honest version
No president sets electricity prices. Fuel costs, grid buildout, and a historic surge in data-center demand drive them, and that would be a fair defense of any administration presiding over increases. It is not available to someone who picked the number and picked the date. Judged by the test he wrote himself - your total electric bill, half off, by this past January - the pledge did not just miss. It pointed the wrong direction. [1][2]
THE BOTTOM LINE Promised: minus 50 percent by January. Delivered: plus 6.7 percent last year, a record cooling bill this summer, and an all-time demand record this weekend. The meter does not grade on a curve.
The bill that lands this month is the receipt. Read it next to the promise. [1][2]
