Nearly Half of Maine Voters 50+ Say One Bill Is Forcing Cutbacks

Household budgets are stretched thin enough without one bill taking a bigger bite every month.

A recent poll asked older Maine voters whether a bill like that has changed what else they buy, and plenty said it has.

Here’s what the poll found, and what may be behind it for Mainers.

Note: This is general information, not financial advice. Rates and program details are subject to change, so confirm the current figures with the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

How AARP Ran the Poll

Wondering who asked the questions?

AARP hired a Republican polling firm and a Democratic polling firm to work as a team.

Together, they interviewed 982 likely voters across the state between Sept. 20 and 22, 2026.

The fieldwork lasted three days.

If you were on that list, you’d have gotten a call from a live interviewer or a text message that led to an online survey.

About 55% of the interviews were calls, and the rest were texts.

Its pollsters drew the sample at random from Maine’s voter list.

For the full sample of 982, the margin of sampling error is about 3 points.

That means the results could be off by about that much.

The 47% comes from the voters 50 and older within that group. No separate margin of error is listed for them.

For context, 59.3% of the 494,000 Mainers over 50 voted in the 2024 election.

Here’s what older voters told those interviewers about their electric bills.

The Bill Behind the Cutbacks

Electricity is the bill.

Among voters 50 and older, 47% say rising electricity costs have forced them to cut back on other needs.

Nearly all voters 50 and older, 97%, said it’s important for elected officials to keep utility costs affordable.

That includes 85% who called it very important.

AARP says utilities worry Maine voters more than voters in the other battleground states in this poll series.

If you’re 50 or older and you’ve trimmed other spending to cover your electric bill, you’re in that group of nearly half.

The January Rate Increase

Your electric bill has two parts, supply and delivery. Each typically makes up about half of it.

Supply is the half that rose on Jan. 1, 2026. A kilowatt-hour is the unit your meter counts.

That day, the standard offer supply rate for Central Maine Power customers went from 10.6 cents to 12.72 cents per kilowatt-hour.

That’s about 20% higher.

In Versant Power’s Maine Public District, the rate rose from 11.7 cents to 14.88 cents.

WGME, a Maine TV station, reported that a Central Maine Power home using about 550 kilowatt-hours a month would pay an extra $11 each month.

Maine’s Office of the Public Advocate estimated that many customers would see an increase of at least $150 a year, or $13 to $17 a month.

The office pointed to higher natural gas prices and to changes in wholesale electricity markets.

Natural gas was the largest source of Maine’s electricity in 2024.

Rates in Earlier Years

If you’re a Central Maine Power customer, your electric bill had a higher supply rate in early 2023 than it does in 2026.

The standard offer was 17.6 cents per kilowatt-hour that January.

Then it was 10.8 cents in early 2024 and 10.6 cents for all of 2025.

So the 2026 rate is higher than 2024 and 2025 but lower than early 2023.

The state energy office says Maine still has some of the lowest electricity rates in New England.

The source is the Energy Information Administration.

Whatever Maine’s rank, the number that matters to you is the one on your bill.

Living on a Fixed Income

Maine is the nation’s oldest state, with a median age of 44.9 years in 2025.

That means half of Mainers are older than that.

AARP’s write-up of that finding singles out Mainers living on a fixed income.

Social Security checks got a 2.8% cost-of-living raise for 2026.

The Social Security Administration estimated that raised the average retired worker’s check by $56 a month.

That’s from $2,015 to $2,071.

On paper, that $56 is bigger than an electric increase of $11 to $17 a month.

But averages hide a lot.

If your income is fixed, you feel a rate change the month it lands.

Your raise comes only once a year.

Among Maine voters overall, AARP found that gas and groceries worried people most.

Utilities and health care came next.

Discounts and Winter Protection

Maine's electric bill discount program, the Low Income Assistance Program (LIAP), has $40.5 million this year, up from $22.5 million in 2025.

Discounts could range from 25% to 81% for Central Maine Power customers and 17% to 83% for Versant Power customers.

To qualify, you need a household income at or below 150% of the federal poverty guidelines.

Or you need to be eligible for the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP).

Last year, about 44,000 ratepayers took part. The state notified about 67,000 households that they were eligible.

If you qualify, discounts should take effect on or soon after your November bill.

Another safeguard starts Nov. 15.

Under state law, the disconnection prohibition period runs from Nov. 15 to April 15.

In that time, a utility can't send you a disconnection notice.

It needs permission first from the Maine Public Utilities Commission's Consumer Assistance and Safety Division.

If you get SNAP, TANF or MaineCare, the state says it will use that to find eligible households.