Datacenter Backlash Unites Americans Against Tech Billionaires — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Three-quarters of Americans now oppose local datacenter development, a swing of more than 30 points in just one year, with more than 500 counties and municipalities passing bans or moratoria and dozens of projects killed.
- Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for a national moratorium, while Utah's senate president was ousted from office for supporting hyperscale proposals.
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott — who once called Texas the "epicenter of AI development" — declared last week that datacenters "dug their own grave," as a proposed 550-acre Google datacenter in Monrovia, Indiana faces unified opposition from Trump voters and liberals alike.
- In Ohio's Senate race, Democrat Sherrod Brown has made Republican Jon Husted's support of datacenters the centerpiece of his campaign, prompting the National Republican senatorial committee to warn that "datacenters are the anchor hanging around Husted's neck."
- Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers announced support for a one-year moratorium days after The Lever revealed he held millions in AI-related investments.
- Organizers in Indiana, Michigan and Texas describe a phenomenon where MAGA Republicans and liberal activists are forming unlikely alliances, with one Texas organizer saying rural communities are realizing the left-right divide matters less than the split between the working class and tech oligarchs.
Why it matters: The datacenter backlash is producing what political scientists Jennifer McCoy and Murat Somer call "transformative repolarization" — a potential realignment that could pull working-class voters away from both parties on a single issue. With Senate contests in Ohio and Michigan now turning on datacenter opposition and three-quarters of the country opposed, the movement has shifted from local nuisance to potentially decisive electoral force.
Ask SkimNews
