Data center backlash reshapes 2026 midterm politics

Opposition to A.I.-related data centers has become a major issue in U.S. politics ahead of the 2026 midterms, with candidates in both parties responding to local backlash, The New Yorker reported.

The article said candidates and voters have focused on newly built data centers on the outskirts of towns as Democratic primaries recede. Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former public-health official who became Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate after an insurgent campaign, said: “People really effing hate data centers.” He said opposition to the facilities helped decide primaries in Michigan and Kansas the previous week.

About 70% of Americans oppose building hyper-scale data centers in their area, including 63% of Republicans, according to Gallup. The New Yorker said more than 4,000 data centers have been built across the United States and about 4,000 more are planned.

Politicians from the left, center and right have moved away from the projects in recent months, the article said. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed a federal moratorium on new data centers in March, while New York Governor Kathy Hochul enacted what the article called the first statewide moratorium in July. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis set conditions on new data centers in May, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott suspended such projects last week pending an audit after saying eight months earlier that Texas would be “the centerpiece for A.I. data centers for Google in the entire world.”

The backlash has centered partly on the size of the facilities, their limited jobs after construction and their demand for electricity and water, according to the article. Microsoft said a new site in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, would use 46.6 miles of deep foundation piles, 26.5 million pounds of structural steel, 120 miles of medium-voltage underground cable and 72.6 miles of mechanical piping. Data Center Watch said at least 75 data-center projects with total costs of roughly $130 billion were stopped in the first three months of 2026.

Some Democrats see data centers as a national issue that could challenge President Donald Trump’s populist image and his ties to tech billionaires, the article said. Microsoft A.I. CEO Mustafa Suleyman said in May that the technology could “automate most white-collar tasks within twelve to eighteen months,” though the article said there is little evidence of job loss so far and that Suleyman later walked back the remarks. The article said moratoriums may not greatly affect A.I.’s advance because many centers already exist and others could be built in friendlier jurisdictions or overseas.