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AIPROPX ReportTime · 53m ago
The GOP'S Data Center Panic
—Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Image: Cnv Studio via Canva)
Not even a year ago, state leaders of all stripes were clamoring for data centers , the A.I.-warehouses of the future. Incentives here. Promises of infrastructure there. Sweetheart deals all around. But as voters started to view the centers as a resource suck and potentially job killers, sentiment moved quicker than a ChatGPT prompt; between March and July, public opinion shifted 12 points against new data centers, according to one national poll.
The result has been a massive reset of assumptions about the wisdom of these campuses of computing power. The backlash is stealthily turning midterm elections across the country into referendums on anxieties about an economy overrun by A.I., and specifically the role of those data centers that appear to be sending both electricity bills and NIMBY-ism spiking. The shift also sets in motion a messy collision between the GOP candidates adjusting to voter sentiment and the parochial whims of their party leader.
In Texas, Republican Ken Paxton rolled out a proposal on Monday to block data centers that could use Chinese technology and hold data centers responsible if those automated A.I. bots “undermine children’s safety.” It was the latest sign this month of Republicans in the red state recalibrating on the issue, following Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement of a pause on new data centers—after calling his state the “epicenter of AI development” in November.
In Michigan, GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers last week called for a one-year moratorium on new data centers after earlier supporting their construction. His opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has called for data centers to cover their own power costs, limit water consumption, and work with local communities to give them a “meaningful say.” El-Sayed previously said Michigan shouldn’t move forward with such projects until there were “federal-level guardrails.”
And in Florida, Rep. Byron Donalds, widely seen as the state’s next Governor after winning this month’s Republican primary, dumped more than $2 million on just one ad in his primary promising to “protect” the state from data centers. It was a stunning reversal from just a few weeks earlier, when Donalds mocked opponents of the data centers as yesteryear nostalgists. “There ain’t no bans coming,” he said.
You’re not imagining the whiplash. President Donald Trump has remained a cheerleader for the data centers, seeing the prospect of high-powered computer chips cementing U.S. dominance across all industries. It also hasn’t hurt that the Trump administration has extracted ownership stakes in semiconductor companies in exchange for funds allocated during President Joe Biden’s term.
"Communities that don't take a data center, they're making a mistake,” Trump said of the swelling number of localities banning such sites during an interview last week.
It usually goes poorly for Republican candidates running counter to Trump. But on this issue, Trump's position will only make it tougher for Republicans to convince voters that they are really willing to push back on the A.I. buildout.
But it’s not just Republicans facing heat on the issue. In Wisconsin, the Republican nominee for Governor, Rep. Tom Tiffany, has labeled his Democratic opponent “Data Center David Crowley” and has been highlighting his own opposition to Wisconsin’s tax incentives for data centers. Crowley has tried to underscore the need for a balanced approach to the issue. As Crowley told me just this month before he won his primary: “All data centers are not all created equal.”
And in Pennsylvania, Republican Stacy Garrity, the state Treasurer running for Governor, recently backed a temporary moratorium on new data centers, after saying earlier this year that Pennsylvania should welcome more of them. Garrity’s new approach is actually a click further than incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro, who last year touted an Amazon data center as the largest investment in state history, but has since revoked fast-track approval for new data warehouses. Garrity is now hitting Shapiro for welcoming “data centers in our backyards.”
A warning from Ohio
Ohio may be where the data center backlash is playing the most visible role in a topline Senate race, as Sen. Jon Husted is trailing the Democrat, former Sen. Sherrod Brown.
“More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck,” Senate Republicans’ campaign arm wrote in a memo last week first reported by Axios.
In one ad, Brown casts the data-center spree as a consequence of Husted’s advocacy when he worked as the state’s Lieutenant Governor. “Husted is a chief reason Ohio has so many of those centers,” the ad says. “He force-fed the massive energy-sucking facilities.”
Brown’s strategy here dovetails neatly into his long-standing reputation as a working-class champion , with data centers serving as physical manifestations of an A.I. revolution that is poised to cost workers’ jobs, concentrate power in the hands of the elite, and feed tech oligarchs who do not have middle-class worries at the fore.
The memo continues: “Brown is using it because it works.”
In the Senate, Husted has introduced legislation to encourage states to require companies to pay for their own power and ensure that the cost of new transmission infrastructure is not passed on to consumers.
To be clear, the leaked memo was the campaign equivalent of putting out a Bat Signal to deep-pocketed and influential A.I. players to do something, and fast, to counteract this backlash. If the industry doesn’t get the message, it may find itself fighting this with far fewer allies heading into the 2028 presidential cycle.
"If [Husted] loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notices—and they will not go near the next one," the memo warns.
It’s not just the Senate race where data centers are dominating Ohio politics. In an unexpectedly close conte...
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