The Housing Equation: Affordability’s Role in Electoral Choice

This study examines how housing costs influence voting patterns in U.S. presidential elections, with particular attention to differences between renters and homeowners. Prior research generally links rising housing prices to greater incumbent support, consistent with homeowners’ incentives to preserve housing wealth. Our analysis, however, shows that in counties with a higher proportion of renters, rising house prices diminish support for incumbents. This effect is most pronounced in politically competitive swing states and among younger voters, for whom barriers to homeownership are especially salient. Measures of housing affordability yield parallel results: declining affordability erodes incumbent support among renters, while homeowners do not exhibit comparable reactions. By contrast, increases in rental rates do not consistently produce voter backlash, suggesting that renters’ political behavior reflects broader aspirations toward homeownership, aligned with the American Dream narrative. These findings highlight the asymmetry of financial stakes across tenure groups and underscore the electoral salience of housing affordability in shaping political outcomes