The November 3 midterm results gave Democrats full control of Congress, and the article says that could set up one of the most divided U.S. governments this decade with Republicans in the White House. It also says anger over data centers is becoming a political force, which could lead to new limits on where they are built and how much say local communities have.
Election anger over AI facilities
Tuesday’s results showed data centers becoming a ballot-box issue in several states. An NBC exit poll found that more than half of respondents think AI will do more harm than good, almost 80% oppose data centers in their neighborhoods, and almost 60% said data centers were a crucial or major factor in their vote. Nadine Smith, president and CEO of Color of Change, described the election as a referendum on “who this economy is built for.”
Smith tied the debate to a familiar argument from supporters of data center buildout. She said national security matters, and she pointed to families in South Memphis breathing exhaust from gas turbines that power an AI supercomputer. Her comment referred to xAI’s data center in Memphis, Tennessee, which uses gas turbines for power.
State races and local resistance
Voters in several states pushed back against the AI buildout, even as pro-AI super PACs spent millions trying to influence the midterms. Ohio drew especially strong backlash, where OpenAI has eyed a $500 billion data center backed by more than $100 billion in financing from Nvidia. In the Ohio county where Meta had planned a 700,000-square-foot facility, voters just passed a ban on data centers, and local communities across the state overwhelmingly voted against data center buildout measures.
Morgan Stanley analysts predict that Democratic governor-elect Amy Acton will also be a major risk to Ohio’s data center buildout. Elsewhere, candidates in Texas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, and South Carolina won seats after opposing the rapid buildout of data centers. Anshi Bhatt, a tech and policy researcher, said money does not buy outcomes and added that, in modern politics, creating a “local villain” can help build campaign momentum.
What Congress could change
Likely next steps include more construction moratoriums or requirements that data centers pay for their own power grid upgrades instead of shifting those costs to nearby communities. Goldman Sachs predicts data center construction delays in states such as Georgia and Texas because Democrats gained ground. Democratic control of Congress could also improve the odds for bills like the one Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced earlier this year, though the bill could still face a veto.
That proposal calls for a nationwide moratorium on new data centers until Congress adds new guardrails and ensures the buildout does not raise electricity costs, harm the environment, or proceed without community approval. Another bill, the GRID Savings Act from New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, would stop grid infrastructure costs from being passed on to communities during large AI data center buildouts.
Environmental and local concerns
Environmental concerns remain central, especially at xAI’s data center in Memphis and at data centers across Virginia, which the article describes as the world capital of data centers. Maia Woluchem, program director at Data & Society, said changes to energy regulations, land rights, and other environmental policies could affect the buildout, especially as congressional Democrats look further into the Trump administration’s rollback of certain energy protections, as the New York Times reported they might.
Woluchem also said there could still be more movement at the state and local level because momentum has been building from the ground up. She pointed to governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who supports a statewide moratorium on data centers, as one example. Both Hinojosa and Gov. Greg Abbott called for some limits, but Hinojosa centered much of her campaign on opposing data centers, a notable choice in Texas because the state’s electrical grid has proved vulnerable over the past decade.
The fight over control
Smith said the difficult part is still ahead and expects a fight, or even more executive orders, to get around what Congress is now likely to block. She also said that even among Democrats, a blanket freeze is contested because some worry it could slow AI progress and hurt national security.
She expects AI lobbyists to begin calling lawmakers. Smith said Democrats ran on making Big Tech pay and that the job now is to make sure they remember it once the cameras leave. The backlash, she said, runs deeper than the buildings themselves, which are not new.
Why the opposition has grown
A private equity executive told the article that people do not necessarily hate data centers, but rather AI, and that data centers have become a stand-in for fears and anxieties about the technology. Woluchem said the results point to real frustration with tech power at minimum, and she said the issue is also bipartisan. Over the past month, people have said they are worried about the environmental effects of data centers and about having little say in whether they are built.
Amazon built a data center in Gilroy, California, without many residents knowing by satisfying a 45-year-old zoning law. Vague or outdated zoning laws, along with nondisclosure agreements that local officials sign to keep them from discussing data center projects, have fueled outrage about the buildout. Data centers have also received billions in tax breaks, and although tech companies have highlighted benefits such as jobs and community programs, many people say that has not been enough. People want to keep a say in what happens in their communities, and many fear AI buildouts will mainly enrich a few wealthy people while communities suffer and living costs rise.
If AI infrastructure is truly treated as a national priority, Smith said the companies building it can afford to pay for their own power, meet clean air standards, disclose what they use, and build with the consent of the people who live next door. She said families should never be subsidizing the richest corporations in history through their utility bills.
Licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0 International