58% Against, Both Parties Scrambling: Data-Center Revolt Hits The Midterms
A "booming backlash" against AI data centers is shaping the midterm election - candidates cutting ads touting their anti-data-center credentials, protesters showing up at campaign events, industry players taking note - which will come as genuinely useful news to anyone who has spent the past year getting their information exclusively from NBC News.
The network's framing is that last year's elections in a handful of states revealed the hyperscale buildout as a major tension point up and down the ballot, and that the fight has now intensified into a full midterm issue - with demonstrators displaying "Stop Data Centers" signs at President Trump's Michigan appearance on Sunday - the protest movement having now reached the point where it greets the president of the United States at his own events.
According to the report, Republicans, Trump included, have shifted toward ensuring data centers do not drive up voters' power bills, which is what happens when the polling gets loud enough to be heard over the donor calls.
A June Yale Program on Climate Communication poll cited by CNBC found 58% of registered voters oppose data-center construction in their own area - including 53% of conservative Republicans, which is not a demographic famous for agreeing with the 74% of liberal Democrats who feel the same way. More than 300 cities, towns and counties have enacted bans or moratoriums on hyperscale construction, per a count by The Information, and Data Center Watch tallied 75 major projects worth more than $130 billion delayed or canceled in the first quarter of 2026 alone - roughly matching the damage from all twelve months of 2025. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the nation's first statewide moratorium this month, voters in Monterey Park, California passed a permanent ban at the ballot box, and in April an unknown attacker fired 13 shots into the home of an Indianapolis councilman who had voted for an AI facility, leaving a note reading "No Data Centers," per The Week - the point at which a land-use dispute stops being a land-use dispute.
The issue is bipartisan in the most literal sense: nobody knows which party owns the issue. In Wisconsin, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong is campaigning on a pledge to "tax the rich, fund our schools and stop AI data centers," per AP, while Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro takes fire from his own rural base for welcoming the buildout onto prime farmland. In deep-red west Texas - which JLL projects will overtake northern Virginia as the world's largest data-center market by 2030 - protest groups led by Republicans are springing up in Lubbock, some of whose founders say they may not vote for Governor Abbott at all, and Abbott has responded by ordering regulators to make sure Texans are not paying higher electricity bills for the privilege of hosting Google. When the same issue is simultaneously a Democratic socialist's headline pledge and a Republican rancher's reason to stay home, the consultants have a problem no ad buy fixes.
We've been tracking this revolt since it was a smattering of county fights. Earlier this month - in one day, there were 142 coordinated protests across 42 states under Tea Party veteran Amy Kremer, who declared that America is not for sale and predicted data centers on the ballot in November and again in 2028.
The prediction is aging well - and now the mainstream media is catching up, four months before midterms. Meanwhile the enforcement arm of the buildout keeps generating its own coverage - this week's example being the Kansas physics teacher jailed for clapping at a data-center hearing while the commission passed the zoning anyway.
Needless to say, the pitchforks are out...
Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 15:45
Continue reading...
[ H/T ZeroHedge ]
A "booming backlash" against AI data centers is shaping the midterm election - candidates cutting ads touting their anti-data-center credentials, protesters showing up at campaign events, industry players taking note - which will come as genuinely useful news to anyone who has spent the past year getting their information exclusively from NBC News.
The network's framing is that last year's elections in a handful of states revealed the hyperscale buildout as a major tension point up and down the ballot, and that the fight has now intensified into a full midterm issue - with demonstrators displaying "Stop Data Centers" signs at President Trump's Michigan appearance on Sunday - the protest movement having now reached the point where it greets the president of the United States at his own events.
According to the report, Republicans, Trump included, have shifted toward ensuring data centers do not drive up voters' power bills, which is what happens when the polling gets loud enough to be heard over the donor calls.
A June Yale Program on Climate Communication poll cited by CNBC found 58% of registered voters oppose data-center construction in their own area - including 53% of conservative Republicans, which is not a demographic famous for agreeing with the 74% of liberal Democrats who feel the same way. More than 300 cities, towns and counties have enacted bans or moratoriums on hyperscale construction, per a count by The Information, and Data Center Watch tallied 75 major projects worth more than $130 billion delayed or canceled in the first quarter of 2026 alone - roughly matching the damage from all twelve months of 2025. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the nation's first statewide moratorium this month, voters in Monterey Park, California passed a permanent ban at the ballot box, and in April an unknown attacker fired 13 shots into the home of an Indianapolis councilman who had voted for an AI facility, leaving a note reading "No Data Centers," per The Week - the point at which a land-use dispute stops being a land-use dispute.
The issue is bipartisan in the most literal sense: nobody knows which party owns the issue. In Wisconsin, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong is campaigning on a pledge to "tax the rich, fund our schools and stop AI data centers," per AP, while Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro takes fire from his own rural base for welcoming the buildout onto prime farmland. In deep-red west Texas - which JLL projects will overtake northern Virginia as the world's largest data-center market by 2030 - protest groups led by Republicans are springing up in Lubbock, some of whose founders say they may not vote for Governor Abbott at all, and Abbott has responded by ordering regulators to make sure Texans are not paying higher electricity bills for the privilege of hosting Google. When the same issue is simultaneously a Democratic socialist's headline pledge and a Republican rancher's reason to stay home, the consultants have a problem no ad buy fixes.
None Of This Will Surprise Regular Readers
We've been tracking this revolt since it was a smattering of county fights. Earlier this month - in one day, there were 142 coordinated protests across 42 states under Tea Party veteran Amy Kremer, who declared that America is not for sale and predicted data centers on the ballot in November and again in 2028.
The prediction is aging well - and now the mainstream media is catching up, four months before midterms. Meanwhile the enforcement arm of the buildout keeps generating its own coverage - this week's example being the Kansas physics teacher jailed for clapping at a data-center hearing while the commission passed the zoning anyway.
Needless to say, the pitchforks are out...
Tyler Durden Thu, 07/30/2026 - 15:45
Continue reading...
[ H/T ZeroHedge ]
