Datacenter restrictions found broad support in this week's US midterm elections.
Data Center Watch, which tracks grassroots opposition to compute sheds across America, examined the public positions of 74 selected candidates across the 36 states that elected governors in the midterm elections on November 3.
It found that 43 percent of those candidates supported a ban or moratorium on new projects, while another 51 percent backed further regulation or conditional development. Only about 5 percent had no stated public position.
Support for bans or moratoriums crossed party lines, although it was more common among the Democratic candidates examined (60 percent) than Republicans (30 percent).
Candidates from both major parties backed restrictions in eight states: Maryland, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Texas.
Texas has experienced a boom in data campus development recently, thanks to its ample energy resources and light-touch regulations, although outgoing governor Greg Abbott ordered a pause earlier this year while audits of energy and water use were carried out. Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who supports a temporary moratorium on datacenter buildouts and has vowed to "stop the data center takeover,” defeated Abbott in Tuesday's election and will take office in January.
These positions matter to developers because governors can shape state regulation, energy policy, and permitting, although approval powers vary by jurisdiction.
However, temporary pauses and targeted construction restrictions do not necessarily amount to opposition to all datacenter development.
Things were even starker where folks got to vote directly on the issue, with measures regarding datacenters appearing on the ballot as well as candidates. Data Centers on the Ballot, which tracked many of these, found that 43 out of 46 municipalities where tighter restrictions on server farms were up for a vote had approved those at the time of publication. Only in one case, the City of Harwood in North Dakota, had restrictions been rejected, and 2 had yet to post results.
AI-related campaign spending has also come under scrutiny. Guardrails Alliance, a labor-backed pressure group, described Leading the Future, a super PAC network opposing AI regulation, as "largely a non-factor" in the elections. It alleged the network avoided the most competitive races because "they know their money is politically toxic."
Anti-datacenter sentiment has grown in the US in response to the facilities popping up in people's backyards, often without them having any say in the process.
A Gallup survey earlier this year discovered that more than 70 percent of Americans would be against the construction of one in their neighborhood, while a Pew Research Center survey found that Americans increasingly believe datacenters are bad for the environment and blame them for rising household energy bills.
Pew also found that advertisers spent almost $12 million on Facebook and Instagram political ads mentioning datacenters between July 27 and October 24. Among those running in October through the study's cutoff, 57 percent opposed datacenters and just three percent supported them.
Common themes included corporate interests, energy use, environmental effects, and water consumption. ®