Data centers are bringing Americans together
Vox · L · trust 48/100
And politicians can’t run away fast enough.
Gift Protesters rally against data centers at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on July 27, 2026. Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images The data center backlash has entered the midterms conversation.
Politicians from across the spectrum have changed their minds — or at least their policy positions — about data centers in the past few months as public resistance to their construction has skyrocketed . A major example is Texas, where just about one year ago, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was proclaiming that his state was the “epicenter of AI development.”
Now, after months of grassroots organizing and community outcry, Abbott is pushing to slow the roll of new data centers in Texas. He’s imposed a statewide moratorium on new construction pending an audit over the new connections to Texas’s power grid. While he hasn’t explicitly said the change is tied to his reelection campaign this November, the pause is expected to last through the election.
As dramatic as Abbott’s about-face has been, he’s not alone: Democrats and Republicans alike are following suit.
Jeremy Merrill , a data reporter at the Washington Post, analyzed thousands of social media posts and newsletters to see what elected officials on both sides of the aisle are saying about data centers. He spoke with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about his findings, what they say going into midterm elections, and how the backlash might change the way we think about what politicians owe to their constituents.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts , Pandora , and Spotify .
Data centers didn’t used to be a big deal. And now, almost all of a sudden, they’re a big issue. Candidates are falling over themselves to sound tough about data centers. And data centers are overwhelmingly portrayed as a problem rather than an opportunity or a benefit.
A great example is Sen. Jon Husted, who’s a Republican senator from Ohio, who’s up for election this November. He used to praise data center projects that were coming to Ohio when he was lieutenant governor because it would help establish Ohio as “an important tech hub in America.”
He said that data centers are essential to our digital lives. And now he’s saying he’s trying to “protect Americans from having to foot the bill for data centers.”
He’s really emblematic of a shift that happened all across the Republican Party in about February of this year. That’s when the bulk of messages from Republicans about data centers flipped from focusing on them as bringing benefits to their states and communities, to talking about their downsides.
This is really a case of the anger and unhappiness bubbling up from everyday people up to political elites. And that grassroots anger was all across the political spectrum over a whole range of issues: power bills, claims about how much water data centers may use, air pollution, eminent domain, taxes, subsidies, and a generalized, physical manifestation of the anxiety that people feel about what AI is going to do to our society, to our brains, to our kids and to our jobs.
We know that it’s not just one single candidate, maybe even not just a handful, because you reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned that, “Data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”
That’s pretty strong language. Is the National Republican Senatorial Committee admitting that the wrong position on data centers is enough to lose a candidate a race at this point?
I think it’s something that they’re certainly worried about. He’s in a tough race. It’s a tossup . And presumably you’re looking for an edge, or to prevent your opponent from getting an edge over you.
What about President Donald Trump’s messaging on data centers? He, initially at least, was very bullish on AI investment in the US. What has Trump been saying?
This is a story in two or three parts. As President Trump took office again last year, he was overall trying to portray his second term as president as “inaugurating a golden age for American manufacturing and technological dominance.”
As part of that, he issued an executive order trying to make it easier to build data centers in the United States. And I think that’s probably why last year most Republicans across the board were talking about data centers as a benefit to the country and to the communities where they were being built — talking about jobs, talking about investment.
But like I said, the tide turned. And so on the one hand, you have President Trump promoting this bill that would protect people from having data centers cause their power bills to go up. But on the other hand, he just wrote earlier this week on Truth Social, “If [communities] want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”
He’s saying if they don’t want data centers, they’re going to “end up being backwards and poor.” So he’s still very pro-data center, which is fascinating.
Let’s talk about the Democrats. Which Democrats in particular are we seeing change their minds?
There are a lot of governors who used to be very positive on data centers in their states because these bring jobs. These bring construction investments, some amount of permanent jobs, some amount of construction jobs. Examples of folks who are now limiting data centers in their states include Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and [Gov.] J.B. Pritzker of Illinois.
The most striking case of a Democrat whose rhetoric has shifted so much is Rep. Ro Khanna of California, whose district actually includes Silicon Valley. In 2025, he was calling for building more data centers in the United States versus overseas. When the Trump administration did an AI deal with the United Arab Emirates, he said, “Why are we putting data…
Read the original at Vox →
Open in TruthVane →