Water almost never shows up on a ballot, and it rarely cracks the list of issues people say will decide their vote. Yet it may be one of the few things left that Americans across the political spectrum still agree on. With the midterms about a month out, the communications group Water Hub makes the case that this moment of deep public frustration is not only a problem for water advocates but an opening, and it has put together a plain-language playbook for talking about water that any group in our network can pick up and use.
Water Hub, a nonprofit that helps the water and environment movement communicate, published a short piece called “Water in the Midterms” along with a companion Water Communications Playbook. The argument is simple: people say they care about water but often do not act on it, and the way to change that is to meet them where they already are, worried about the cost of living and fed up with a system they feel is rigged. The playbook lays out core values, best practices, and ready-to-use message building blocks for talking about safe, affordable, reliable water. We have linked it below so your group can use it heading into a noisy season.
Why water is common ground right now
Start with the mood. Cost of living is the top concern voters name going into these midterms, and water is quietly part of that squeeze. Water and sewer bills have been climbing faster than inflation for years, a trend confirmed by independent reporting and a recent Washington Post analysis, and an EPA-based estimate that Water Hub cites puts the number of American households facing unaffordable water bills at roughly 19 million. At the same time, federal water infrastructure funding is set to drop off sharply unless Congress acts, which means more of the cost of fixing old pipes lands on local ratepayers. None of that sorts neatly by party. A leaking main and a rising bill look the same in a red township and a blue one.
The frustration runs deeper than any single bill. Trust in government, media, and business is low, and a sense that the system is rigged is widespread. Water Hub reads that cynicism as a barrier, since people who feel nothing can change are hard to move, but also as a shared starting point. The accountability instinct, the sense that someone with power is getting away with something, is one of the most bipartisan feelings in the country right now.
How Water Hub says to talk about it
The advice boils down to three moves. First, make water a kitchen-table issue. Tie it to the household costs people already feel, and point to concrete fixes like stronger federal water funding and ratepayer assistance programs of the kind that already exist for energy, phone, and internet. Second, use accountability messages with care. Framing that calls out corporate water users, from data centers to industrial agriculture, tests well across the spectrum, but Water Hub warns that criticism alone can deepen the very cynicism it taps into, so it should be paired with examples of government and communities actually getting things done. Third, lead with hope and the big picture. Name the wins, like new state water funding in Texas, Iowa, Colorado, and Kansas City, and the growing list of towns hitting pause on data center projects, rather than getting lost in the weeds of any one policy fight.
The playbook itself gets practical about craft. Skip the jargon, since a lot of readers check out at the word “cyanobacteria” but lean in at “green slime that makes it unsafe to swim.” Put real people and real places in the story, name the creek or the neighborhood, and describe how a solution makes life safer or cheaper rather than leading with the name of a program. It is the kind of guidance a volunteer writing a newsletter or a board member talking to a reporter can use the same afternoon.
A note on staying nonpartisan
Water Hub is an advocacy organization, and some of its framing is pitched at building a political coalition. H2O is not in the business of telling anyone how to vote, and nothing here is an endorsement of a candidate or a party. What holds up, and what makes the playbook worth sharing, is the plainer point underneath: clean, affordable, reliable water is something people want regardless of how they vote, and advocates do better when they talk about it that way. The data on bipartisan concern is not spin. It is the strongest argument there is for keeping water a unifying issue instead of a dividing one.
Why it matters for the rest of us
Our partners spend the fall season competing for attention with everything else on people’s minds, and in an election year that is harder than ever. A reminder that water is common ground, and a free tool for talking about it in a way that actually lands, is worth having on the shelf. Whether the water in question is the Mon running past a mill town, a well outside New Wilmington, or a household bill in Wheeling, the craft is the same: name the place, name the person, and make the stakes something a neighbor can feel. Small, clear messages add up, the same way small observations do.
Adapted from Water Hub’s “Water in the Midterms” by Nicole Lampe, published October 2, 2026, and its companion Water Communications Playbook. Statistics are drawn from the sources Water Hub cites, including a Brennan Center poll on government corruption, a Washington Post analysis of water rates, an EPA-based affordability estimate via Climate and Water Equity, American Rivers, and Reuters. Water Hub is a project of Multiplier. Current as of October 8, 2026.
