Candidates set data-center positions in Ohio, Arizona and Michigan
Clean-energy and consumer advocates told The Guardian that rising electricity bills and the rapid expansion of data centers could influence 2026 midterm contests in Ohio, Arizona and Michigan. Democrats are linking Republican candidates to higher utility costs as the party seeks to retake control of Congress, while advocates say voters are beginning to connect monthly bills with their ballots.
National average electricity prices increased about 10% in the last two years, according to federal figures. A Pew survey found 74% of Americans said they were “very concerned” about gas and energy prices. A Hart Research poll, described in The Guardian report as left-leaning, found voters in battleground districts ranked utility bills among the three most important issues in the midterms.
Charles Hua, founder and executive director of PowerLines, a national non-partisan nonprofit that aims to modernize utility regulations, said utility bills could become a top-tier national political issue. “This midterm election cycle has the potential to become the first election cycle where electricity and utility bills become a top tier national political issue,” he said. “We’re entering a new politics of electricity.”
Hua said energy politics had historically centered on the gas pump. The Guardian cited demand from datacenters, an aging grid in need of repairs, wildfires and hurricanes that further weaken the grid, and the war in Ukraine as factors pushing up electric bills. The report separately said the war in Iran had raised gas prices.
Geoffrey Henderson, who has researched candidate messaging on climate and energy in the election, said power bills were one part of a broader affordability concern that has dominated the midterm cycle. “Utility bills were already on people’s minds in prior election cycles, but what’s changed is that datacenters are being proposed and advanced at such a fast rate, and there’s been so much community-level opposition to the datacenters that I think it’s elevating the utility bill question,” Henderson said.
Ohio, which has the fourth-highest number of datacenters of any state, illustrates how the issue has entered a Senate campaign. Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown has run advertisements calling incumbent Republican opponent Jon Husted the “face of datacenters” and connecting his support for the industry to rising electricity bills. Ohio electricity rates have increased 34% since 2022, according to state figures, and an Ohio Northern University poll found 55% of Ohio residents oppose datacenter construction while 79% believe datacenters will drive up water and electricity costs.
Husted served as lieutenant governor in an administration that offered tax breaks to bring datacenters to Ohio. In July, he introduced a bill he said would help prevent utilities from shifting datacenter costs onto ratepayers; Senate Democrats blocked the bill and called it “toothless.” A leaked memo dated 18 August quoted Republican strategists as acknowledging: “More than any other thing in this race, datacenters are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”
Spencer Dirrig, vice president of government affairs for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund Pac, which backs more regulations on datacenters, said the issue could help Brown in rural Ohio. “This is an issue that has legs in rural Ohio, and I think it’s going to really help [Brown] close the margin in some of those Republican areas,” Dirrig said. “That could be the difference in the election.”
Regulatory choices also feature in Ohio’s tight gubernatorial race. Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy both say they would support halting new datacenters until new regulations take effect. Acton has criticized Ramaswamy for holdings in the datacenter-related industry, calling them a conflict of interest; Ramaswamy has said he would divest if elected. Acton also held stock in companies tied to datacenters, but her campaign says she sold individual stocks earlier this year to avoid conflicts of interest.
Acton has said she would appoint state utility commissioners who would focus on lowering consumer costs. Dirrig said that would have a real impact on Ohioans’ wallets: “If you want the clearest possible connection between your vote and your energy bill, it’s who you elect to be governor and who they appoint to be the public utilities chair,” he said. Ramaswamy has not publicly said who he would appoint, and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
In Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has sought to tie his opponent, Mike Rogers, to DTE Energy, which The Guardian described as the state’s unpopular, large private utility. El-Sayed has criticized Rogers for accepting donations from the company. DTE has been criticized for rate hikes and frequent outages as it signs contracts with datacenters, and DTE did not respond to a request for comment.
A statewide Michigan ballot measure would ban regulated utilities such as DTE Energy from contributing to politicians. El-Sayed has said he supports the measure, while Rogers has not taken a public stance and did not respond to a request for comment. In Ann Arbor, a separate measure proposes replacing DTE Energy with a public utility; the city’s mayor and city council oppose the measure.
Brian Geiringer, executive director of Ann Arbor for Public Power, which advocates replacing DTE with a public utility, said El-Sayed has established himself as an anti-DTE candidate. “He often names DTE explicitly,” Geiringer said. Despite opposition to the Ann Arbor measure, Geiringer said it touches on a resonant theme this election season. “Paying your monthly bill and having your power go out in DTE territory all the time certainly is one of the most salient [examples] of corporations taking your money,” he said.
In Arizona’s sixth congressional district, covering suburban Tucson, advocacy groups have run advertisements against incumbent Republican Juan Ciscomani, saying his vote for the One Big Beautiful Act would increase residents’ utility bills by more than $200 a year and cut clean-energy production. The $200 figure is based on an estimate from the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Democrat JoAnna Mendoza, who is seeking to unseat Ciscomani, supports investments in clean energy and says her “top concern” is that constituents can afford the energy needed to cool their homes. In October, the Cook Political Report shifted its outlook on the race from “toss-up” to “leans Democratic.”
Starting in 2024, Ciscomani signed letters asking his party leadership to retain some Biden-era clean-energy tax credits, but he ultimately voted for legislation that phased them out. Ciscomani has defended his vote by pointing to compromises he said would lessen the effects on wind and solar energy. Since then, hundreds of workers were laid off at an EV factory in his district, and several clean-energy projects were canceled in Arizona. Avila said those projects could have helped supply energy during periods of high demand. “[Ciscomani’s vote] is really affecting not only electricity prices, but also people’s livelihoods and jobs,” she added.
The Guardian reported that in Arizona, where summer temperatures regularly hit triple digits and air conditioning can be a matter of life and death, Diali Avila’s monthly power bill rose to $400 this year, the highest it had ever been, as the state recorded its hottest summer on record. Avila, state director for Climate Power, an advocacy group, said the upcoming elections offered voters an opportunity to elect candidates who can ease their utility bills. “People are making the connection: they’re looking at their electricity bills that they get at the end of the month, and then they’re looking at their ballot, and they’re [realizing], this is my moment to take action,” she said.
Avila said she hoped that if Mendoza wins, she would push legislation to support the state’s clean-energy industry. But she added that another state election might have more power to lower Arizonans’ utility bills in the near term: two of five seats on Arizona’s public utilities commission are up for grabs. Republicans have held a majority on the board for decades, and currently all five members are Republicans. “Democrats have an opportunity to rally this energy around electricity costs and flip two seats this November,” Avila said.
The issue has already shaped campaign messaging in the three states. Democratic advertisements link opponents to datacenters and utility bills, while the Ohio governor candidates have offered a shared pause on new projects pending regulation. The reported electoral effect remains prospective: advocates and polling identify broad concern, but whether the issue changes the November election results remains uncertain.