Brooklyn Midterm Crowd Boos AI Data Centers as Nearly $200 Billion in Projects Were Delayed or Blocked in First Half of 2026

Since Data Center Watch tallied the damage from local opposition in the first half of 2026, the fight over AI data centers has moved from zoning boards toward the ballot box. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3, two days from now.

On Thursday evening, Oct. 29, the issue showed up uninvited at a midterm event in a Brooklyn warehouse hosted by Newsreel, the media company founded by former Forbes and Newsweek reporter Jack Brewster. Brewster said the goal was for people to "put their phones away and talk to each other about the election, five days out."

That is not how the night went. Brewster said data centers came up in every onstage conversation and ranked second among topics attendees submitted in advance.

The booing

TechCrunch reporter Dominic-Madori Davis moderated a panel on data centers and electric bills with Maia Woluchem, a technology and human rights researcher, and Hilary Flint, an environmental and public health advocate. Davis asked who in the room supported AI data centers. The audience booed.

That was a room of media workers, tech founders and policy advocates in Brooklyn. It was not a poll, and it says little about how voters in Loudoun County, Virginia, or rural Pennsylvania would answer.

Still, the panelists laid out specific complaints. Big tech companies, they said, strike deals with local officials without enough public scrutiny. Zoning rules can leave residents unsure what is being built until the window to object has narrowed.

They tied the opposition to health and environmental worries, living costs, and tech executives' talk of replacing workers. Davis said the panel framed data centers as a physical symbol of distrust toward the industry and the speed of its development.

When Davis raised benefits some communities have received from data center construction, Flint rejected the idea that compensation settles the question.

The numbers

Data Center Watch reported that almost $200 billion in data center projects were delayed, stalled or blocked in the first half of 2026 because of political and community opposition. A breakdown of those figures puts it at 75 projects worth about $130 billion from January through March, and 45 projects worth nearly $68 billion from April through June.

Those are project values, not financial losses. The eventual fate of the delayed projects is unclear. Some may be built later, moved or cancelled.

State legislatures are paying attention. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, New York and Virginia are considering more guardrails and transparency requirements for data center development. Hundreds of new facilities are planned in Virginia alone, a state already nicknamed the "data center capital of the world."

Jobs versus consent

New York City Council member Chi Ossé, who described himself as a democratic socialist but a "law and order" one, said he does not really use AI. He called for tech executives to be held more accountable and for trillionaires such as Elon Musk to be taxed more. When CEOs talk about a technology that could deplete 10% of human civilization, he said, "they should be called to testify in front of Congress."

A later panel on the Democratic Party's future took up the labor question. NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon noted that some unions back data centers because of the jobs they promise. She compared them to the large industrial buildings Rust Belt towns once took pride in, because those workplaces meant prosperity, stable families and a future for children.

The room pushed back. Vox's Astead Herndon said Vivek Ramaswamy was booed in Ohio for making a similar argument. Herndon said the issue is consent, and that he has heard that concern from Republicans as well as Democrats.

Morris Katz, a strategist who worked on Zohran Mamdani's campaign, questioned whether the institutions he blames for eliminating union jobs can credibly promise workers something better now.

The two sides are not arguing about the same thing. Ungar-Sargon's case rests on paychecks and community stability. Herndon's rests on whether residents got a say before the project arrived.

What is still unknown

Brewster said AI has become an election issue for regular voters. The sources identify no specific race expected to turn on data centers. TechCrunch's reporter wrote that the issue "could sway some midterm races," and that is a forecast, not a result.

The measurable part is on the project side: 120 tracked projects held up in six months by local opposition. What voters do on Tuesday, and what the five states weighing new data center rules do afterward, will show whether that opposition is a local zoning fight or a lasting political force.