Voters Rejected 40 of 41 Local Data Center Ballot Measures as Political Ads Turned Sharply Negative

The AI build-out had a bad Election Day. Voters in 10 states sided against data centers in 40 of 41 local ballot measures on Nov. 3, according to Ballotpedia figures. Ohio alone held 21 of them.

The lone industry win came in Harwood, North Dakota, a town of roughly 800 people, where voters rejected an added review of industrial projects, data centers included.

The ballot results

In Piqua, Ohio, where Meta plans a $1 billion data center of up to 1.4 gigawatts, residents voted to recall the mayor and two city commissioners who backed it. Edgewater, Florida, voted to write a data center ban into its city charter.

An NBC News exit poll found 76% of voters would oppose a new data center in their community. Some 56% said AI and data centers were a crucial or major factor in their vote for Congress.

That is not the same as saying the issue decided the outcome. A voter can call something a major factor and still have voted on prices, the economy or the president.

Ads flipped from supportive to hostile

Pew Research Center analyzed 20,751 ads about social issues, elections or politics that mentioned data centers and ran on Facebook or Instagram between Jan. 1 and Oct. 24. In January, 42% of them were supportive and 31% critical. By October, 3% were clearly in favor and 57% were opposed.

Advertisers spent almost $12 million on these ads between July 27 and Oct. 24, per Pew's closer look at 13,956 ads. About 61% of that money went to ads that did not promote a candidate, the kind advocacy groups typically fund. Of those, 56% opposed data centers and 13% supported them.

The other 39% backed specific candidates. Pew found 72% of those ads promoted Democrats and 15% promoted Republicans. Pro-data center messaging appeared in less than 1% of candidate ads. When candidates from either party brought the subject up, they were about equally critical.

Television was bigger. AdImpact figures put TV advertising that mentioned data centers at more than $380 million this cycle, with Democrats outspending Republicans on the topic by better than three to one, according to NBC.

The messages differed by side. Pew found 47% of anti-data center ads raised corporate interests, about double the 22% rate in pro ads. Jobs were the pro side's main theme: 25% of pro ads mentioned employment, against 3% of the opposing ads.

Texas and Ohio

Gina Hinojosa unseated Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after running on a data center moratorium that would last until the state passes laws on water, electricity, air and property rights. The legislative session that could pass them ends in mid-2027. Abbott, a Republican, had already ordered the state's environmental regulator to halt data center permits on Sept. 21.

In Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown ousted Sen. Jon Husted after spending millions on ads attacking Husted's past support for data center tax incentives. Brown cast him as "the face of data centers." Governor-elect Amy Acton backs a "conditional moratorium" requiring data centers to cover all of their utility costs and build only with union labor.

Husted had a defense on the ratepayer question. He introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act, which passed the House with overwhelming support from both parties. It fell short in the Senate, where it drew a handful of Democratic votes. Senate Democrats argued it did not go far enough because it lets states decide whether to mandate the standards.

Money at stake

Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius put numbers on the exposure in a note on Nov. 4: "The states where Democrats are likely to further restrict data centers account for roughly 45% of planned US data center capacity, with Texas alone accounting for roughly 25%."

Texas sites under construction include the 1,820-megawatt Stargate Frontier in Shackelford County and Nexus Hubbard, a 6,400-megawatt site meant mostly to serve Anthropic. Local officials and construction unions may resist a statewide freeze, according to MIT Technology Review. Ohio is home to the PORTS-Pike campus, where OpenAI has secured 8 gigawatts of computing capacity.

The companies tried to get ahead of the anger. Amazon pledged more than $1 billion over five years to communities that host its data centers in October. Microsoft promised in January to cover its sites' grid costs and stop seeking local tax breaks.

The fight inside the right

The industry's defenders frame this as a race with China. Data center advocates have stressed the buildings' economic value and strategic importance in setting global AI standards against the Chinese Communist Party, per the Epoch Times. Steve Everley of FTI Consulting, which works with the industry, conceded the other side's point: "The community concerns and the pushback and the questions—it's all real."

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts told the Financial Times that Republicans underestimated local opposition and let Democrats turn the issue into an advantage. He also pointed to the economic consequences of the war involving Iran as another factor in the party's losses.

On the left, Rep. Greg Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called the revolt "one of the top issues of the 2026 election." On the New York Times podcast Hard Fork, Ezra Klein said the tech right attached itself to Trump and that tariffs and the Iran war are part of why Trump holds an unpopular position, though he said the tech right is not the reason Trump pursued either.

So the post-mortem has competing explanations, and none of the people offering them claims data centers alone produced the result.

What comes next

Ohio's statewide initiative to restrict larger data centers missed the 2026 ballot but could land on the 2027 ballot. Texas lawmakers will take up Hinojosa's moratorium framework when the next regular session convenes, with the session's close in mid-2027 setting the deadline for water, power and property-rights legislation.