Data center backlash forces bipartisan repositioning ahead of US midterms

Trump labels data center backlash a ‘sick conspiracy’ as fellow Republicans shift

The political conversion of one veteran US senator captured the speed of the shift. A senior policy adviser to the Democratic lawmaker told the BBC that the senator, who a year ago was barely tracking data centers, now holds regular staff meetings on the issue and is working on new legislation to curb their rapid expansion. The person spoke on condition of anonymity, saying staff were not authorized to speak to the press.

“This happens sometimes, something starts slow and then it goes fast,” the adviser said. “There is a clear policy need here that we’re looking to fill. This is a major backlash across the country — constituents are seeing the impacts of data centres and they do not like them.”

Data centers — warehouses packed with rows of computer chips that store the processing power for internet activity — have become the physical infrastructure of artificial intelligence’s explosive growth. About 3,000 data centers currently operate in the United States, with that number potentially doubling in the next few years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis cited by the BBC.

The scale of individual projects illustrates why residents have organized. In Indiana, Amazon is building a 26-building complex across the street from the home of Angelita Soriano. When complete, the development will occupy more than a square mile and house 782 diesel-powered generators. In Ohio, a joint project of OpenAI, Nvidia, SB Energy and the US Department of Energy is set to build a data center complex stretching roughly six square miles — the size of most US townships.

“I don’t want to be the guinea pig for this,” Soriano told the BBC.

Data centers are built through local rules and permits, giving federal lawmakers little say in where they go. Yet opposition has grown so strong so quickly that politicians at all levels are now all but required to take a stand. The BBC spoke to residents in Indiana, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Oregon who cited concerns about building size, construction and operational noise, impacts on air, water and energy resources, and the speed at which the structures are approved by local authorities.

Community groups have tracked the spread of opposition. During the first months of 2026, organizing groups more than doubled to 833 in nearly every US state, according to research from Data Center Watch, a firm that collects data for AI industry stakeholders and is part of the AI startup 10a Labs.

Trump has dismissed the backlash publicly, calling it a “sick conspiracy” and describing people and towns working to keep the buildings out as “backwards and poor.” His ire has been used as a boon to Democratic politicians looking to draw midterm votes from unhappy or undecided constituents, the BBC reported. That posture has also put Trump in direct conflict with members of his own party on Capitol Hill as they confront local constituents.

In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed made new rules and regulations for data centers a central plank of his successful Senate primary campaign. In the Georgia governor’s race, a Democrat calling for a pause on data center development is running in a dead heat with a Republican who disagrees.

In Ohio, Republican Senator John Husted — facing Democrat Sherrod Brown in a competitive race — softened his support after polls showed a majority of Ohio voters oppose data centers, now saying their arrival should be up to local citizens and elected officials. Brown, who has campaigned on opposing new data centers, leads Husted in recent polls.

The data center backlash has reshaped the calculus of Republican campaign committees. Husted’s trouble in Ohio led the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the major fundraising arm for conservatives in the Senate, to write in a private memo that Republican politicians needed to “entirely reframe how they spoke to voters on data centres.” “This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle,” the NRSC added.

Texas illustrates the speed of the reversal. The state currently has almost 300 operational data centers with another 170 planned, according to Pew data. At the end of last year, Republican Governor Greg Abbott had boasted of Texas as “the epicentre of AI development.” Within months he was backtracking, citing concerns of “safety and quality of life.” Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is pushing to end “sweetheart tax deals” for Big Tech and has emerged as a frontrunner in the historically Republican seat he is contesting against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton, in a late September interview, said there is still “plenty of open space in Texas that we can put data centres.”

In Arizona, Governor Hobbs — once a proponent of data center growth — in July enacted a three-year pause on new tax breaks for data center projects, citing public pressure. LUCHA, a community organizing group based in Arizona, has made data center opposition a central plank. Stephanie Maldonado, the group’s political director, told the BBC that residents have been ready “to put a stop to it” for several years — “Now, people are angry.” She described the campaign as “a David and Goliath story.”

Chloe Autio, an AI policy adviser, said the backlash has not broken cleanly along partisan lines. “This isn’t just an issue on the left, there is huge pushback among conservatives to data centres,” she said. “Whoever articulates a clear position and sticks to it, in either party, really stands to benefit.”

The political pressure has begun to feed back into the economic claims of the industry. A Brookings Institution study cited by the BBC found a new data center creates between 100 and 200 local jobs — “fewer than industry advocates claim” — and has essentially no impact on local wages.

New national polling shows AI regulation and data centers rank among the top issues for voters this election cycle, behind the ongoing Iran War and various aspects of the economy, the BBC reported.

Most of the actions or proposals from politicians, including the Arizona pause, are set to expire within one to three years. By that point, the political winds may have shifted, leaving Big Tech and AI firms free to build as they wish.

For now, the industry is encountering resistance at the community level. Balaji Tammabattula, chief executive of Barupon, is developing a roughly 700-acre data center and technology campus in Liberty, Texas. The project is designed to capture rainwater for water and supply its own energy needs, an increasingly common design for major data center projects. Tammabattula told the BBC that people in the community oppose the project out of hand. “There’s just such a high level of tension from the jump that you can’t really even break through with the facts,” he said. At a recent community event, he said, a woman opposed to the project looked him in the eye and told him, “Get the hell out of my state.”