Voters fiercely reject data centers

Fierce pushback to data centers helped carry Democrats to victory in key races across the nation this week, and where the centers were explicitly on the ballot, they lost overwhelmingly. 

Midterm voters both rejected industry-backed candidates and overwhelmingly backed resolutions to halt data center construction, dealing a major blow to the sector. 

Election Day marked perhaps the biggest test so far for data center sentiment. Technology watchdog groups are seizing on the outcome, stating results show the public is largely rejecting the facilities and the technology they power. 

“Data centers represent a fear and an angst that voters have about being replaced by AI, losing their jobs, losing their livelihoods [and] the rising price of energy in their local area,” said Brendan Steinhauser, who managed Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) 2014 campaign and is now CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI. He added that they were also representative of “corruption” from “Big Tech oligarchs.”

While the economy, high costs at the pump, corruption and the state of democracy topped voters’ list of concerns, exit polls suggest data centers were one of several factors contributing to the blue tsunami Tuesday night. 

In an NBC News exit poll, 23 percent of voters said that data centers were “crucial” in their congressional vote, while another 33 percent said they were a “major” factor. Seventy-six percent said they would oppose construction of a new data center in their community.

“This is an issue that really defined affordability for folks, and governors, senators, House-elect members all saw it as a huge opportunity,” Lori Lodes, president of Climate Power, told reporters.

Concerns around data centers were seen in several battleground races up and down the ballot, notably in Ohio and Texas. 

League of Conservation Voters President Pete Maysmith pointed to the Ohio Senate contest, calling it “a really clear example where [Sen.] Jon Husted [R] voted for massive tax giveaways — tax breaks for data center developers — and that was litigated extensively in that........

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