Local anger over energy bills and lost farmland hits two key battleground races.
Voters Poised to Punish Politicians for Data Centers
The Wall Street Journal addresses the question Will Voters Punish Politicians for Data Centers?
In the Midwest, where sprawling facilities are rising on farmland and former factory sites, the issue has become a—if not the—central political focus.
Many of the fights remain hyperlocal, having more to do with city councils than U.S. senators. But constituents are demanding action from federal and state candidates. With early voting expected to start in days, both parties are anxiously waiting to see how far data-center concerns will reach up the ballot.
In Pataskala, east of Columbus, the City Council in August rejected a 200-megawatt data center following vocal opposition from residents. Now, opponents are pushing for a charter amendment that would block such centers in the future.
Brandyn Bernard, 37 years old, a longtime Pataskala resident who voted for President Trump three times, helped push for the ban out of health, environmental and cost concerns.
“I asked for help from Republicans, and I got nothing,” said Bernard, an executive chef for a healthcare company. He flew a MAGA flag from his home in 2024. Today, he has a sign supporting the ban alongside those for two local Democratic candidates. Bernard plans to vote for Democrats this fall.
Polls reflect widespread voter angst. A September Bowling Green State University survey of 1,000 likely Ohio voters found that 70% viewed data centers as bad for the environment and 69% saw them as bad for home-energy costs. Almost eight in 10 favored a temporary construction pause. A Michigan State University poll found more than two-thirds of Michigan respondents opposed local data centers, while a national Wall Street Journal survey showed 62% supported pausing development, with 39% calling it a top priority.
In Ohio, data centers feature heavily in the Senate race between Republican Sen. Jon Husted, 59, and Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown, 73.
Recent polls show Brown, who has made reining in data-center development a core issue in his campaign, leading over Husted, who in 2025 filled the seat when then-Sen. JD Vance became vice president. The Brown campaign aired television ads calling Husted “the face of data centers” and attacked Husted in speeches and billboards for supporting artificial-intelligence data-center expansion while he was lieutenant governor.
The Republican-led state government played a role in creating tax incentives to lure tech investment to Ohio, and leaders, including then-Lt. Gov. Husted, touted the effort. Some Democrats, including Brown, also supported early efforts to attract tech to the state, including data centers.
Today, Ohio has more than 200 data centers operating, under construction or planned across the state, with a large concentration along a stretch of Beech Road in New Albany, near Pataskala.
A recent drive along Beech Road found data centers for miles along what only a few years ago was farmland. The multistory, windowless structures stretch football fields in length. Whirring cooling fans atop the buildings run 24 hours a day. Construction cranes tower over cornfields and huge trucks rumble along the roads, creating potholes and traffic backups. On two-lane roads near the centers, “For Sale” signs are common. One homeowner posted a sign reading, “THANKS to all the companies building for the dust bowl & torn up road.” Nearby, he posted a plastic skeleton wearing a hard-hat and giving the finger.
Republican strategists worry about voter backlash. In August, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a memo that “data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck,” advising candidates to focus on utility costs instead. Husted subsequently backed the “Ratepayer Protection Act” to shift electricity costs to data centers. House Republicans passed it, but Senate Democrats blocked it as ineffective.
In northeastern Ohio’s Trumbull County, Democratic Vice Chair Kathy DiCristofaro hopes the frustration with proposed data centers there will benefit her party. The county went for Trump in 2024 and against Brown in his failed re-election bid that year.
DiCristofaro said 4,200 voters in her county registered either Republican or unaffiliated pulled ballots to vote this May in the Democratic primary. When she contacted those voters to see why, a top answer was data centers, she said.
Michigan Candidates
- Senate Democrat: Abdul El-Sayed (D)
- Senate Republican: Mike Rogers (R)
- Governor Democrat: Jocelyn Benson (D)
- Governor Republican: John James (R)
Ohio Candidates
- Senate Democrat: Sherrod Brown (D)
- Senate Republican: Jon Husted (R)
- Governor Democrat: Amy Acton (D)
- Governor Republican: Vivek Ramaswamy (R)
Michigan Polls and Betting Markets
- Michigan Senate Polymarket: Abdul El-Sayed (D) 70%
- Michigan Senate Nate Silver: Abdul El-Sayed (D) 80.9%
- Michigan Senate Kalshi: Abdul El-Sayed (D) 67%
- Michigan Senate Mish: 70%
- Michigan Governor Polymarket: Jocelyn Benson (D) 94%
- Michigan Governor Nate Silver: Jocelyn Benson (D) 94%
- Michigan Governor Mish: 95%
Ohio Polls and Betting Markets
- Ohio Senate Polymarket: Sherrod Brown (D) 62%
- Ohio Senate Nate Silver:Sherrod Brown (D) 72.8%
- Ohio Senate Kalshi: Sherrod Brown (D) 60%
- Ohio Senate Mish: Sherrod Brown (D) 65%
- Ohio Governor Polymarket: Amy Acton (D) 71%
- Ohio Governor Nate Silver: Amy Acton (D) 75.1%
- Ohio Governor Mish: Amy Acton (D) 75%
I am not as confident of these races as Nate Silver.
In Michigan, El-Sayed is a weak candidate who rates to win due to Trump’s inane tariffs more than data centers or anything else.
Michigan has close ties with Canada and Trump’s tariffs are not popular to say the least.
In Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy was a big supporter of data centers and has since tried to back down, much too late.
Sherrod Brown is a quality candidate for Ohio Senate. That plus data centers should carry the day.
Different Issues in Other States
Paxton is an incredibly weak Senate candidate in Texas hurt by corruption, deportations, and Trum.
Iowa and Kansas are about farm policy, diesel, and deportations.
In a normal setup a wave would be over one top issue. This election seems different, yet all Trump policy related.
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When the Cook Political base case is Democrats +2 in the Senate, you know it looks bad for Republicans.
The implication would seem to be that people want the Gov to find a peaceful way of coexisting with China, instead of using the AI thing to ruin their lives.
This is Capitalism 101: internalize benefits; socialize costs and risks.
It’s also Capitalism 102 (Rentier Oligarchy). The Data Center developers do what wealthy industrial developers always do. They play localities against each other to maximize tax breaks and other incentives, all at existing residents’ and businesses’ expense. The biggest tax break of all is property taxes, because these Data Center complexes have multi-billion-dollar valuations. Are they paying their fair share? Hardly.
For some reason the politicians thought the dictum “there is no such thing as a free lunch” applies only to government subsidized school lunches for poor kids, not to corporate welfare.
Among other breaks, the Data Center developers muscled their way into existing electric utility rate structures. Their impact on electric demand is so huge that every ratepayer now has to pay for the additional generation in higher utility bills. This is antithetical to good rate design: make the new entrants pay for the costs they impose, leaving existing ratepayers harmless.
This sheds light on the biggest issue of this election season: affordability. Why do costs keep going up? Partly because the corporate welfare (especially egregious in land use planning and real estate) makes the rentier class richer while the rest of us get poorer (paying ever-higher rates, fees and rents). All the while, at the national level, the Fed does everything it can to clobber wages at the first hint of wage inflation (asset inflation, not so much). So we have higher household costs at near-frozen wages (or declining in some rust belt regions like Ohio and Michigan).
It’s one reason the DSA is getting so much traction lately.
The politicians are stupid and disconnected from the voters.
Are the voters getting wise? We’ll see in November. I think Mish is right: it’s not going to be a good year to be an incumbent.
“The politicians are stupid and disconnected from the voters.”
Disconnected from the voters – surely. But the politicians are not stupid. They are corrupt. Incredibly corrupt.
It is TOO LATE: THE BRIBERY came into Congressional and Local Politician’s hands five years ago. NOTHING.WILL.HAPPEN!
THE LOOT IS HAD!
They must say DC = Data Center a thousand times in a local WI District 03 ad, as if it’s a partisan issue or that they are all inherently bad. I wonder if the uber-liberal Washington state constutuency despises the BILLIONS of dollars that transformed Bothell, WA from an orchard/farm/rustic bucolic town NNE of Seattle into a megaimportant technology data centric GDP machine for them? I noticed they all got ultra rich on the backs of the miles and miles of “data centers”.
And I’m sure they all own NVDA, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, META, etc, etc, etc
Now they’ll close the barn door/pull up the ladder.
Yes municipalities must decide, yes we must be stewards of resources…..it’s just political theater that the negatives of data centers was plastered on republicans and the past enrichment and apparent goodness fell to the democrats, maybe, hmmm.
It’s the most hypocritical and somehow partisan issue. It’s become as catchy for the Dems as Crooked HIllary was for the R’s in 2016.
as if we all don’t use the data centers every time we look at Mishtalk.com or whatever intertube site or streaming movie or sports…..or even our ovens and fridges in 2026.
That’s not what data centers are for. You’re thinking of servers and a webserver doesn’t require a nation’s worth of power to do nothing.
People here in this forum are likely not all that well-informed about the nuances of Web SERVERS vs. DATA MINING COMPLEXES versus A.I. Data Exchanges.
I grew up in High Tech from 1976 and up. I worked in San Jose, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Cupertino, Mtn View, Fremont, Etc. I hated very minute of those Millions of Dollars in retained earnings. It was and is a RAT RACE. SO, got the eff out!
did AI at NASA in the 80s. used Darpa in 70s. big whoop. i don’t confuse you or me, with copernicus.
Cmon, yippee. I don’t think that was a terrible brag by David.
Also, Copernicus was amazing partly because he was unique for his time. If Copernicus chatted with you or David now, should he look down his nose at either of you? Maybe he’d be humbly impressed.
don’t give a fuck about his resume nor mine. i was just pointing out his resume still makes him wrong. that’s all. if i told you i was a mexican laborer it would hold no water. we were doing AI in the 1980s at NASA and an off balance sheet NYS task force.
What was High Tech in 1976 – those punch cards? LOL
don’t be stupid. of course the internet use require data centers. just because the big boys are building storage and processing buildings for AI doesn’t make this not true. the words, “data center” is their big capital investment scam word to make it sound grandiose. come on.
Aside from the 5 guys that schlep hardware around, nobody in Bothell benefits in any way from the data centers.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I expect ai to follow the same path as streaming services. Lots of players’ products are cheap. Then ai companies get bought up by a few and prices rise. It will put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on cost of using ai instead of people. Not sure if the needed infrastructure will go to waste.
streaming is really inexpensive for what you get in 2026.
costs 10 bucks easy to go to one movie. monthly fee for netflix is less and i can watch hundreds from comfort of my prison cell. at the insane asylum.
All the shit going on with Trump and data centres are what is going to swing the election? Surely, the people of Michigan and Ohio are smarter than that.
those folks are dumber than dirt. come on. they are amerikans. bombs away.
Amerikans is spelt with a Capitol A.
All purrpusslee done here for yu, nincompoop!
does your pussy hurt ?
C’mon, you two. Do I have to give you a Robert Conrad “knock it off” line?
AI means that the oligarchs have 1984 in their grasp and they will let nothing get in their way.
Agree. And if your/my suspicions are correct, then they will make these investments pay off by creating as much credit as they want to make it so.
And who will object? Certainly not the top few % that own stocks and donate the most to campaigns.
Top States for Data Centers
Virginia (specifically Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley”) ranks #1 overall, handling a massive share of global and domestic digital traffic with hundreds of operational and planned facilities.
Texas holds one of the highest concentrations of data centers (led by the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area) and is rapidly expanding its AI infrastructure and energy pipeline.
California features hundreds of operational centers concentrated around major tech hubs to support heavy GPU and machine-learning workloads.
Georgia (centered around Atlanta) has grown into a primary southeastern hub driven by available power, cheap land, and local tax incentives.
Illinois (including the Chicago area) offers extensive power capacity, reliable grid infrastructure, and high site readiness for large workloads.
NYTIMES source. been reading that rag and WSJ since is was a child in the 1960s
That’s my bi-partisan “i wouldn’t be caught dead in….” list.
bipartisan means israeli and amerikan senators
… Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail
A smile from a veil
Do you think you can tell
… Did you exchange
Hot ashes for trees
Hor air for a cool breeze
Cold comfort for change …
Pink Floyd, Wish you Were Here
I’m watching the California coast turn to degraded devalued shit in real time, on monthly increments. And I’m not even in data center country.
Voters could also relate to other lyrics in that haunting piece:
We’re just two lost souls
swimming in a fish bowl
year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
Think of “we” in this instance as the red and blue zombies of the Uniparty, and “you” as a metaphor for sanity
BINGO. WINNER
Love that tune.
Me too, I just got out my guitar and played it. I love the intro.
Roger Waters is pretty good politically as well, not afraid to stand up to Israel, unlike Ed Sheeran.
A fellow guitar player. Thumb’s up for that alone.
Deep down most people know that data centers are a fool’s dream. Not enough power, not enough water, not enough profit, not enough money to borrow, , not enough compute, not enough memory , little to no accounting standards, too many special purpose vehicles(NGO’s) is not politics about dreaming and promising things that will never happen and spending money you do not have. Funny how government and AI have so much in common.
If you ask me, El-Sayed is helped by the significant Muslim population of Michigan who is known to vote pretty conservative most times. I wouldn’t be shocked if they were a big factor in any potential win for him, as well as regular folks disgusted by the language his opponents use about him.
I watched the debate with his opponent, and el sayed was horrible. He has muslim extremist ideology and associates himself with some asshole name Piker who states the US deserved 911. He has received financial support for islamic extremist groups. He could be proven a child molester and the dumbass left would still vote for him. Unbelievable.
That’s funny. I watched the same debate, and Rogers was pathetic. Just another MAGA angry man, he couldn’t answer any question without launching into a culture war rant. Utterly pathetic.
these muslim extremists… are they in the room with us now?
You should try watching something other than OAN, or Fox. You might, one day, with patience, see beyond your silo.
i don’t know squat about him or his opponent. the debate sucked. not impressed with either. el sayed seemed to be egging on the other guy to call him a terrorist. i’ve seen better debates back in HS class presidential races.
The guy that supports keeping child molesters safe says…
How many people do you think you can sell the “all Muslims are terrorists” line to in the year 2026? Jesus the GOP is getting sad.
Appreciate the intelligent responses from the irgc trolls. They resemble my comments.. collective morons
“IRGC trolls”. Unbelievable. Not wanting Deep State Mike Rogers in the senate doesn’t make one an Iranian – much less IRGC. You sound like that idiot Hugh Hewitt.
You support Trump, Israel, and the rest of the Epstein class while knowing what Trump said he did in dressing rooms at Miss Teen USA pageants (not to mention his Epstein connection), what Barak did to Virginia Giuffre, making her bleed from all three orifices, Netanyahu deputy Tom Alexandrovich’s arrest in Nevada for being a child predator before he was released to go home to a hero’s welcome in Israel. You’re psychologically projecting your ideology onto everyone else. El Sayed isn’t even on the Epstein list like Trump, Ehud Barak, etc.
Can’t believe so many of you guys/gals watched “debates” of D v R.
Wasn’t there some pig vomit to clean up somewhere?
And you will get nothing from democan’ts. I feel your pain Brandyn but if you think democan’ts are going to do anything for you besides token measures, feigning to help you, and hemming/hawing that their hands are tied, prepare for disappointment.
Data centers now running diesel generators 24/7, imagine the noise and air quality pollution. Sorry suckers and losers but you reap what you sow.
https://www.gadgetreview.com/virginia-data-center-ran-diesel-generators-for-24-hours-residents-fled-their-homes
The source was Vantage Data Centers’VA2 campus in Sterling, where dozens of diesel backup generators ran for nearly 24 hours after a failure knocked out the facility’s onsite natural-gas turbines. The timing compounded the problem: a Code Red air-quality alert was already in effect, driven partly by Canadian wildfire smoke drifting across the region.
‘It sounds like someone set up a vacuum, like in your living room’: Michigan residents sue AI data center emitting noise 24/7 — company fined for industrial noise ordinance violations, offers to buy homes from residents
https://www.classaction.org/data-center-noise-water-pollution-lawsuit
What boggles my mind is why aren’t these data centers all being built in middle-of-nowhere Wyoming? There’s like empty land everywhere, cold in the winter helps with cooling costs and there are no people around. Same for North Dakota, South Dakota, etc. Why are they being built near populated areas?
At one point there was a 57 mile data center being built in Utah, not sure whatever happened to that one but shouldn’t they all be in Utah?
florida, texas, north dakota all have tons of data centers. as does nc and va……..
Massive data center proposal coming to north city industrial park
with the adjacent Mississippi river and its nearly endless water supply
https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/1w12m5c/massive_data_center_proposal_coming_to_north_city/
And the wind along I-80… they could probably power them for free with windmills. And there is NO scenery to ruin out there.
Found this map.. looks like Texas will be in trouble electricity wise at some point.
https://www.cleanview.co/data-centers/us
Especially since Texas is cut off from other states in terms of sharing electrical load.
What they are banking on is continued build out of renewables (wind especially) to power all of it. It’s possible they may get it right. Or they could have a massive amount of over building or under building of renewable energy.
They haven’t gotten it right the past 20 years so how will it be right now?
Voters are not stupid when you start getting closer to home.
Data centers should be forced to build out their own energy generation and use enforced closed loop cooling. In addition, a bond to cover 20 years of municipal amenities required and any other costs they incur.
The foreboding people have at all this stuff is also not groundless. People sense that none of this is particularly beneficial to them personally, and any fruits will accure to “the system”.
The whole social media/AI industry has been married to intel agency money from the outset; there has been collusion between the industry and the surveillance/cancel state all along, as well as big military funding; in addition, these industries have trampled the law time and again with impunity; the AI training has occurred by violating computer intrusion laws and copyright law tens of thousands of times. In other words, conceived and born in sin. Little reason to think they will repent and serve the good of humanity at large.
The conflicts of interest are horrific, and on steroids with AI.
Yeah politicians tout growth. But if you have a job/ house and such all growth really means is higher taxes more people on the roads.
i always assumed google and facebook were taken over by the deep state decades ago. i mean facebook is what the FBI always had wet dreams about.
As this is an economics blog, I’ll point out the obvious addition to Webej’s excellent comment:
The amount of debt being raised for AI is an existential risk to the system economically as well.
We live in Ohio. My “count the lawn signs” ratio have NEVER failed in a Senate or POTUS election. I will bet my bottom dollar that Brown will take back a seat in Ohio.
Where did you see them? One.of the 3 C’s? Toledo? Dayton? Akron? Canton? Or somewhere outside the big cities, which tend to be more conservative? Thanks.