  In contrast to metals with weak disorder, the resistivity of weakly-pinned
charge density waves (CDWs) is not controlled by irrelevant processes relaxing
momentum. Instead, the leading contribution is governed by incoherent,
diffusive processes which do not drag momentum and can be evaluated in the
clean limit. We compute analytically the dc resistivity for a family of
holographic charge density wave quantum critical phases and discuss its
temperature scaling. Depending on the critical exponents, the ground state can
be conducting or insulating. We connect our results to dc electrical transport
in underdoped cuprate high $T_c$ superconductors. We conclude by speculating on
the possible relevance of unstable, semi-locally critical CDW states to the
strange metallic region.
