The Politics of Data Center Opposition
Anti-tech backlash will be a major issue in the coming years.
When the city council of Festus, Missouri, voted to approve a data center deal last month, the lawmakers unwittingly signed their own eviction notices. Voters last week ousted all four incumbents on the ballot due to their support for the deal. Anger over the move has also driven locals to start a recall effort against the mayor and the other city councilors.
Festus isn’t the only place that witnessed backlash against data centers last week. Voters in Port Washington, Wisconsin, backed a referendum to prohibit future construction of the centers in their town. An Indianapolis city councilor’s home was sprayed with bullets over the lawmaker’s support for data centers.
These events illustrate the growing surge of hostility towards the tech installations. It’s a bipartisan opinion, with both Democrats and Republicans railing against them. Anti-tech sentiment is going to play a major role in upcoming elections, and data centers are going to be at the heart of that opposition.
There are various reasons for opposing data centers. Much of the opposition in Festus was due to concerns that they would reduce property values, raise utility costs, and be a public nuisance. In addition to these matters, the left opposes the data centers for their apparent threat to the environment and representing corporate unaccountability. Elements of the right assail data centers for potentially threatening humanity and empowering the machines to take over. Tucker Carlson called, at least partially in jest, for bombing these centers two years ago.
Polls don’t exactly show widespread opposition towards the data centers. Multiple polls show a plurality of Americans actually support their development. But this is only an abstract issue to those surveyed. When directly faced with data centers in their own communities, voters regularly oppose them in overwhelming numbers. A Quinnipiac poll found that 65 percent of Americans oppose building AI centers in their own communities.
A recent Harvard/MIT poll also registered this sentiment in a survey that otherwise found public opposition in the minority. The primary concern with data centers among those polled isn’t that they would spike utility costs (even though many did worry about that). It was that the new installations would alter their communities and lower their quality of life. That opinion illustrates why voters turn against them when they’re built in their own towns. They view them as an unwanted disturbance to their life and communities. But Americans are fine with them being built—so long as they’re not near their homes.
It makes sense why so many 2028 hopefuls on both sides of the aisle want to oppose data centers. Three Democratic governors—Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker, and Maryland’s Wes Moore—abruptly reversed their efforts to attract data centers to their respective states and now stand against further expansion. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-NY), Pete Buttigieg, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also loudly broadcast their opposition to data centers.
On the Republican side, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis and Missouri’s Sen. Josh Hawley have made data center opposition a core part of their political agenda.
“We’re going to make sure that we put Floridians first, that we look out for our own people, and not just have people get harmed by this rush to create data centers,” DeSantis said in a press conference last year announcing his desire to restrict these installations.
“American families should not have to shoulder the burden of the rising electricity costs produced by data centers in Missouri and across the country. This is unacceptable,” the Missouri senator said in support of his bill with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal to stop data centers from raising energy costs.
The results of local elections show this is a popular issue, regardless of what the polls say. It’s part of a general backlash towards tech. Surveys reveal Americans are anxious about AI and its effects. Lawmakers in both parties want to restrict AI in response to voter worries. These ideas, especially at the state level, would curb American innovation and growth. Fifty different state regulatory regimes on AI would create a byzantine system that would disadvantage American AI while benefiting China. But politicians don’t seem to care about that. AI is a menace that must be stopped at all costs—even if these laws only strangle America’s own development of the technology, not the tech itself.
No American wants to see their property values reduced and their utility costs increased. But there are downsides to restricting or even ending data center development. Tech is one of the few boom areas of the American economy, driving growth in the stock market and in other sectors. Data centers drive job and revenue growth in places where they’re developed. The high demand for these installations gives towns and states leverage to set demands to benefit their residents. “These areas for engagement with Big Tech might involve advancing a local agenda for enhancing high-tech talent initiatives at local institutions and schools,” a Brookings Institution report noted on the possible demands towns could wring from data centers. “Alternatively, they might involve securing abundant computing resources for local academic work from an incoming hyperscaler, or they could entail enlisting partnerships in other forms of R&D [research and development] at local universities, startup companies, or entrepreneurial energy companies.” This leverage would also allow states and towns to eliminate the tax breaks and other goodies used to attract data center development.
But these deals, even when made to lopsidedly favor local residents, may still be a tough sell to voters. The possible economic benefits may pale in comparison to fears over rising utility costs. In a similar vein, many Americans are voting to curb property taxes or outright ban them despite the obvious negative consequences to local infrastructure. These voters don’t mind that as they focus on the personal benefits they would accrue from not paying property taxes. We can see a similar mentality play out with data centers. It doesn’t matter if halting data center development may upend the national economy. To millions of Americans, they’re an unwanted nuisance and shouldn’t be built in the first place.
As we witness more defeats for data centers at the ballot box, more politicians will turn against them. It doesn’t matter if this will stunt economic growth and allow China to beat us in tech advancement. What matters for them is getting elected. When data center supporters have to worry about their home being shot up, it’s understandable why those with high ambitions would turn against them.
It is guaranteed data centers will be an issue in 2028, and few (if any) presidential contenders will want to defend them. Anti-tech populism will be all the rage, even if the consequences may harm the economy.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-politics-of-data-center-opposition/