Data Centers Are Now a Bipartisan Political Liability, and the Polling Proves It

Data centers used to be a sleepy zoning issue. Now they're a live wire in races from Wisconsin to Ohio to Michigan, and the polling shows why.

A Gallup poll cited by both NPR and Yahoo News found 7 in 10 Americans oppose building a data center in their community. A Reuters poll found 64% oppose rapid AI data center buildouts, and 77% worry the power draw will push up their electric bills, according to Yahoo News. That's a supermajority, not a fringe complaint.

The numbers get sharper at the state level. Polling conducted by TIPP Insights for the League of American Workers, commissioned by Daily Signal columnist Steve Cortes, found just 19% of Wisconsin voters approve of data centers overall, with independents at 11% approval. Ten months earlier, the same pollster found 47% approval and only 36% disapproval. That's a near-total collapse in support in under a year. Among Gen Z voters specifically, approval fell from 39% to 9%.

Republicans are getting spooked

A leaked National Republican Senatorial Committee memo, reported by Yahoo News and titled "Ohio Data Center Risk," reportedly warned tech executives that data center backlash is now a central threat in that state's Senate race. The memo allegedly called the issue "the anchor hanging around Husted's neck," referring to Republican incumbent Jon Husted. Yahoo News reported Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown has built an eight-point lead in recent polling, with Brown campaigning against what he characterizes as Husted's unchecked support for tech infrastructure buildouts.

That NRSC memo is a single leaked internal document, and its claims about the causes of Husted's polling position have not been independently verified beyond Yahoo's reporting. Readers should treat the specific "eight-point lead" and the memo's characterization as reported claims, not confirmed fact.

Republicans running for office aren't waiting to find out if the memo is right. Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP nominee for Ohio governor, released what he calls an "Ohioans-first data center pledge," according to NPR, calling for legislation and a moratorium on new construction until it passes. Ramaswamy said data centers are his second-biggest complaint from voters after property taxes, citing rising electric bills, noise, pollution, and what he called the absence of "clearly defined economic benefits for Ohio families." He's even called for data center companies to cover nearby residents' power bills.

His Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, got there first. NPR reported Acton released a "conditional moratorium" plan last month, accusing Ramaswamy of being unable to protect communities from "his fellow big-tech billionaires."

Democrats are running on it too

This isn't just a Republican problem. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed held a rally outside an OpenAI-Oracle data center campus in Saline Township, demanding federal guardrails before any more such projects get approved, according to NPR. El-Sayed narrowly won his primary, and while data centers weren't his central pitch, they fit his broader message about corporate money in local politics.

In Wisconsin's governor's race, the divide is stark. Republican Tom Tiffany is campaigning on local control, demanding data centers only get built with full local community approval, per Daily Signal. Democrat David Crowley supports data center growth as long as developers "bring your own clean energy." Crowley leads Tiffany 43%-41% in the TIPP poll, within the margin of error, meaning data center sentiment could plausibly swing the outcome either way. There is no data in these sources definitively proving data centers will decide the race, only that the issue is unusually salient in an otherwise razor-thin contest.

On the ground, it's about water and control, not partisanship

Fox News columnist David Marcus visited the Jefferson County Fair in West Virginia and found data centers dominating conversation over affordability. A local cattle farmer named Roy told him power lines and data centers threaten the only asset his family has: the land. Democratic state house candidates Jenny Thacker and Marta Beck both raised concerns about groundwater use and the state stripping local municipalities of zoning control over these projects, not outright opposition to development itself.

Ohio Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman raised similar concerns on Bloomberg Television, according to Whatfinger Money, pointing to higher electricity bills, opaque tax incentives, and secrecy surrounding local development deals as the drivers of voter anger, not partisanship.

Why this is happening now

The scale of the buildout explains the backlash. Goldman Sachs Research projects global data center electricity demand will rise 160% to 165% by 2030 compared with 2023 levels, according to Yahoo News. The International Energy Agency estimates global data center electricity use will roughly double to 945 terawatt-hours by 2030. In the U.S., data centers could consume 8% to 12% of total electricity by decade's end, up from about 4% in 2023.

AP News reported that President Trump has continued championing data center expansion as a national priority even as the issue turns toxic in midterm races across both parties. That tension—a White House pushing buildout while candidates in both parties campaign against it locally—is the defining contradiction of this election cycle. Whether governors like Texas's Greg Abbott, who Fox News reported has effectively paused new data center approvals pending a statewide grid audit, represent the leading edge of a broader policy retreat or just a handful of outliers is still an open question heading into November.

Ohio's Senate race, where Brown and Husted are set to face off, may be the clearest early test of whether this backlash actually changes votes or just changes talking points.