How Democrats and Republicans found common ground against data centers
The backlash against data center construction continues to grow, and it’s becoming increasingly bipartisan.
Data centers that run artificial intelligence are on the verge of reshaping America’s electricity grid. And the large warehouses packed with computers are popping up in rural communities across the county. With midterm elections fast approaching, voters largely disapprove of new data centers in their area — and that leaves political candidates in a tactful balancing act.
Seven out of 10 Americans oppose data center construction near where they live, according to polling conducted by Gallup in March. Among Democrats, 75% of respondents told Gallup they strongly or somewhat oppose local data center construction, while 63% of Republicans also expressed opposition.
Christopher Borick is a political science professor and director at the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown, Pa. — the epitome of a battleground state. Borick told Straight Arrow that many voters see data centers as “being imposed upon them with some clear costs and not as clear benefits.”
The backlash against data centers is based on a “confluence of factors,” Borick said, including the perceived risk of higher electricity bills, water consumption and a feeling that residents are losing local control.
On top of that, Borick described the power imbalance between the tech industry, its political backers and communities near data construction, which can lead voters to “the idea that economic elites aligned with political elites are focused on their interest at expense of individuals that are not elites.”
Muddied waters
On the Democrat side, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have introduced a national moratorium on data center construction.
During a committee hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives last week, Ocasio-Cortez put the environmental concerns on display as she presented a jar of brown water and said it is from a well in Morgan County, Ga., near a Meta data center.
Families in the rural area “have to ship water to their house in order to cook and bathe themselves,” Ocasio-Cortez told an Environmental Protection Agency official while holding the jar of muddy liquid. She also called for a national-level investigation into water pollution associated with data center construction.
The EPA official, Assistant Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer, said she was not aware of any water quality issues in Morgan County and would look into the matter to “ensure that water quality standards established by EPA are being met.”
Morgan County, with a population of about 22,000 people, sits south of Athens, Georgia, and about 60 miles east of Atlanta. In 2024, the county voted 73% for President Donald Trump.
Many residents in the area have reported well water quality issues, but it’s unclear how widespread the problem is or its exact cause. Meta denied any responsibility.
In a short video produced by left-leaning media outlet More Perfect Union, Ocasio-Cortez and reporter Dan Lieberman cite construction within the aquifer recharge zone as the cause of the pollution. But rather than pointing solely to Meta, some local residents attribute the problem to a Rivian automobile manufacturing plant being built nearby.
Straight Arrow reached out to both Meta and Rivian for comment, but has not heard back.
A GOP ‘shaken up’
As the party in power, Republicans have a more complicated position on data centers. In July 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at easing regulatory requirements for data centers and supporting infrastructure.
But the Trump administration has recognized the political risk from high electricity bills, and it pushed major tech companies to commit to a nonbinding ratepayer protection pledge earlier this year.
The issue of data centers has “clearly shaken up the GOP,” Borick said. Elected Republicans “see the economic value,” he added, “but they also know their base has become increasingly populist in nature.”
Despite Trump’s outward support of AI infrastructure, dissent within the Republican Party has been quietly growing. Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina recently pushed her state to enact a one-year moratorium on data center construction.
“These companies are planting massive data centers across our state, driving up energy demand, and leaving families and small businesses to pick up the tab,” Mace said, according to Spectrum News.
Texas has become the largest market for data center developers outside of Virginia, and local backlash in the Lone Star State appears to be influencing state officials. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is the highest-profile elected Republican to openly resist data center development.
“It is time for a temporary moratorium on new hyperscale data center development in Texas until we fully assess the long-term impacts on our infrastructure, agricultural economy and communities,” Miller wrote in a recent editorial. “We need comprehensive, independent studies on water use and grid reliability and stronger transparency on incentives.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
