How backlash against data centres could shape the US midterm elections

How opposition to data centres could influence the US midterm elections

A year ago, a veteran US senator was barely paying attention to data centres. Now, according to one of his advisers, he is holding regular meetings with staff to monitor their effects and is working on new legislation intended to slow their rapid spread across the country.

“This happens sometimes, something starts slow and then it goes fast,” the senior policy adviser to the Democratic senator told the BBC. The adviser spoke anonymously because they are not authorised to talk to the press.

The senator’s complete shift in focus has been driven largely by a rising public backlash that has forced politicians nationwide to rush to respond. Public opinion has turned against the expansion of data centres, the large warehouses that hold the computing power behind internet activity.

Filled with rows upon rows of computer chips, sometimes stacked seven feet high, data centres have become more than just internet infrastructure. They now represent the physical side of the recent and dramatic rise of artificial intelligence (AI), along with the many fears people attach to it.

“I don’t want to be the guinea pig for this,” Indiana resident Angelita Soriano told the BBC.

An Amazon data centre is being built directly across from her home. Once finished, the 26-building complex will cover more than a square mile in her neighbourhood and operate 782 diesel-powered generators.

Some data centres are even bigger. In Ohio, a partnership involving OpenAI, Nvidia, SB Energy and the US Department of Energy is preparing to build a data centre complex that will span about six square miles, roughly the size of most townships in the US.

There are around 3,000 data centres currently operating in the US, and that figure could double in the next few years, according to a report by

Because data centres are approved through highly local rules and permits, federal lawmakers such as US senators have little influence over the process.

Even so, opposition has grown so quickly and so strongly in the US that politicians at every level now almost have to take a position.

“This isn’t just an issue on the left, there is huge pushback among conservatives to data centres,” said Chloe Autio, an AI policy adviser. “Whoever articulates a clear position and sticks to it, in either party, really stands to benefit.”

That view was echoed by the adviser to the US senator working on data centre legislation.

“There is a clear policy need here that we’re looking to fill,” he said. “This is a major backlash across the country - constituents are seeing the impacts of data centres and they do not like them.”

That has placed many on Capitol Hill - including Republicans - in direct tension with President Donald Trump, who has backed the unchecked growth of AI technology.

Trump has called the backlash against data centres a “sick conspiracy” and said people and towns trying to block the buildings are “backwards and poor”.

His anger has become an advantage for Democratic politicians hoping to win midterm votes from dissatisfied or undecided voters.

The BBC spoke with residents in Indiana, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Oregon, all of whom have been organising locally against data centre development. They raised concerns about the buildings’ size, construction and operating noise, their effects on air, water and energy resources, and the speed with which local authorities appear to approve them.

In the first few months of this year, community groups opposing data centres more than doubled to 833, appearing in nearly every US state, according to research from Data Center Watch.

Stephanie Maldonado, political director of LUCHA, a community organising group in Arizona, described the backlash against data centres as “a David and Goliath story” that started several years ago.

“People have been ready to put a stop to it,” Maldonado said. “Now, people are angry.”

Supporters of data centre construction often say the projects will bring more local jobs and better-paying ones.

But recent research from the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan policy research group, found that a new data centre creates between 100 and 200 local jobs, which is “fewer than industry advocates claim”. The projects also have essentially no effect on local wages.

LUCHA, a community organising group based in Arizona, has made stopping data centre development one of its main priorities

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs was one such supporter - until public pressure pushed her to the other side. In July, she imposed a three-year pause on any new tax break given to a company for a data centre project.

Arizona is far from the only state where politicians have responded to the backlash.

Abdul El Sayed, a Democrat running for Senate in Michigan, made new rules and regulations for data centres a clear part of his successful primary campaign.

In Georgia’s governor’s race, a Democrat calling for a pause on data centre development is tied with a Republican who opposes that idea.

Republican Senator John Husted of Ohio, who is trying to hold his seat against Democrat Sherrod Brown, has also had to adjust his stance.

He has softened his support, saying their arrival should be decided by local residents and elected officials.

Meanwhile, Brown has campaigned on his opposition to new data centres. He leads Husted in recent polls.

“This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle”, the NRSC added.

Texas may be the clearest example of how the backlash has become an unavoidable issue even for the most pro-business politician.

The state currently has nearly 300 operating data centres, with another 170 planned, according to Pew data.

At the end of last year, Republican Governor Greg Abbott praised Texas as “the epicentre of AI development” because of the number of data centres there.

Within months, he was retreating from that position, pointing to concerns about “safety and quality of life”.

It could also matter in the state’s upcoming Senate race.

Democrat James Talarico’s campaign is calling for an end to “sweetheart tax deals” for Big Tech. He is now viewed as a frontrunner for the historically Republican seat, where he is facing Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Paxton said in a late September interview that there was still “plenty of open space in Texas that we can put data centres”.

Many of the steps or proposals from politicians trying to satisfy or respond to these voters are temporary. Most of the moratoriums, for example, will expire in one to three years.

By the time those moratoriums end, the political climate may have changed, allowing Big Tech and AI companies to build wherever they want.

For now, public sentiment remains intense.

Balaji Tammabattula, chief executive of Barupon, is developing a roughly 700-acre data centre and technology campus in Liberty, Texas. Even though the buildings are designed to use rain capture for water and provide their own energy needs, an increasingly common approach for major data centre projects, Tammabattula told the BBC that people in the community reject the project outright.

“There’s just such a high level of tension from the jump that you can’t really even break through with the facts,” he said.

At a recent community event, Tammabattula said he tried to speak one-on-one with a woman who was strongly opposed to the project.

“She just looked right at me and said, ‘Get the hell out of my state.’”