Faribault ballots climbed 61% over 2022, the largest jump among data-center-linked cities
Running for City Council in Farmington this year, Blomgren said voters asked him about data centers more than anything else. “This was the issue that everyone wanted to talk about,” he said. “When I went door to door, it was about the data center.”
Blomgren opposed the proposed Farmington Technology Park hyperscale data center and said he would vote against it at every turn. When he takes office in January, he will be one of a host of newly elected leaders in Minnesota bringing skeptical stances against data centers to local governments. He lives about 1,000 feet from where the development could be built, and there are residents who live much closer. He is not opposed to data centers as such but to projects of that size receiving selective rezoning near residential neighborhoods. “The scale is really the issue,” he said. “Few people are as worried about a gas station next to them. A lot of people would be if it were a refinery.” He also said: “People built their homes to the west side of the property thinking it would be a golf course or homes.” “When you build a home next to a railroad track, you know a railroad track is there. You don’t build your home thinking there will be a data center.”
Data centers became a new election issue in Minnesota this year. After city leaders opened doors to developments, sometimes using nondisclosure agreements to keep details out of the public eye, residents in suburban Farmington and Greater Minnesota cities like Hermantown, Faribault, Pine Island and Monticello organized against them. In the face of this opposition, projects mostly inched forward unless courts slowed them down. The issue contributed to an uptick in candidates filing to run in local government elections. On the campaign trail, at forums and in newspaper articles, data centers dominated the discourse. Several races offered stark differences between candidates on the issue.
Farmington’s council race drew 48% more voters than in 2022, helped by a robust slate of candidates and a special mayoral election. Blomgren said the sitting council’s data center decisions clearly played an important role.
In Pine Island’s mayoral race, an appointed incumbent who supported Google’s data center project faced a candidate motivated to run against it; Mark Lang won in a landslide. Pine Island recorded 12% more voters than in the last midterm race in 2022, a rise about in line with Minnesota’s 13% statewide increase.
In Hermantown, tensions flared in late October when council members approved a key step in the regulatory process for another Google-backed data center. Days later, voters ousted one of the council members involved, Andy Hjelle. Two members of Stop the Hermantown Data Center, Emma Richtman and Candi Mock, beat him in a race for two open seats, helped by an 18% increase in voter turnout.
Faribault recorded the largest rise among data-center-linked cities, with about 61% more votes cast than in 2022. A deep field of candidates likely contributed, and none of the six candidates running for three spots expressed support for data centers ahead of the election. The top vote-getter, Natalie Halverson, said opposition to data centers partly explains the turnout. “It is a big looming issue,” she said. “People want to know where people stand on that. I think it might have driven some people to be a little bit more engaged.”
Halverson cautioned that Faribault faces challenges beyond data centers, including housing shortages and maintaining healthcare access, and she and other candidates talked about those issues and data centers during their campaigns. “It’s a hot-button issue,” she said of data centers. “But Faribault is not a one-issue town.” Blomgren’s campaign site pointed out Farmington needs a grocery store, right under his stance on data centers.
It’s reasonable to conclude data centers were not the sole driver, but rather an important driver, of voting this year. At a postelection panel at Minnesota State University in Mankato, political scientist Kevin Parsneau noted that the issue featured prominently in state legislative races. A state House race in District 18A, covering North Mankato and St. Peter, carried ads pinning a pro-data center stance on Republican incumbent Erica Schwartz. She lost to DFL challenger Leah Hanson, as the DFL won legislative majorities. Parsneau said stances on data centers do not entirely fall along partisan lines, but that President Donald Trump’s loud support for data centers before the election may have had an impact. “Probably Donald Trump didn’t do Republicans a favor by being very much for data centers,” he said.
His colleague, political scientist Fred Slocum, noticed campaign ads centered on data centers in the close 1st Congressional District race, where the winning Democratic candidate, Jake Johnson, called for a moratorium on the projects, distinguishing himself from Republican incumbent Brad Finstad. Pine Island, Faribault, North Mankato and Cannon Falls, all cities linked to data centers in recent years, are located in the 1st District. National exit polls back up the idea that data centers were one important factor for voters in congressional races. “In that race, that may have well made a difference,” Slocum said.
It remains unclear whether the results will lead city councils to reverse course, because newly elected officials against data centers will not necessarily represent majorities. They may need colleagues to join them, and in some cases those colleagues would need to exhibit a sudden change of heart in order to do so. Pine Island looks likely to have two of five council members against Google’s project, Hermantown is on track for the same ratio, and Faribault’s new council members will represent three votes in a seven-member body.
Monticello, where 30% more voters cast ballots in council races and 33% more voted in a mayoral race, elected one council candidate, Derek Armstrong, who raised concerns about a project. A vocal data center critic, Monica Primeau, narrowly lost her mayoral race to incumbent Lloyd Hilgart by 40 votes.
Farmington appears closest to a majority voting bloc against the data center: Blomgren opposes it, newly elected mayor David Pritzlaff opposes it, and another new council member could serve as a swing vote. In what could be the first of more changes in store for Farmington’s local government, the city’s administrator resigned after the election. Outgoing Mayor Nick Lien, who stepped in after his predecessor resigned following a heated exchange with a resident about the data center, linked the administrator’s resignation to the “democratic process.”
Earning a spot on the council will at least open up the candidates to more information. Halverson described a gap between what council members and staff know about the data center plan and what residents are told. “There’s been closed meetings obviously and they’re not able to share what happens in those meetings, so coming into this there’s a lot we don’t know,” she said. “I’m looking forward to having the full picture of where the city is at in this project.”
Blomgren said he intends to use his new vote accordingly. “I’m not going to be voting to advance this project,” he said. “But every community has to weigh this differently. For us it was very clear that putting this between two neighborhoods was not the right choice for this city.”