At a Brooklyn midterm party five days before Election Day, every conversation, from a council member’s fireside chat to a debate about the Democratic Party, kept circling back to AI and data centers.
After the midterms, a bigger clash over data centers could be coming | TechCrunch
Data center opposition crossed party lines in Tuesday’s midterms.
Why data centers are a top issue in the 2026 midterms | Brookings
Nicol Turner Lee and Darrell M. West examine how data center backlash is reshaping the 2026 midterms and AI's future.
How AI Data Centers Became a Central Issue in Today’s Midterm Election
Server farms for AI have become a uniting issue for voters and a bipartisan headache for candidates.
‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers
Americans have soured on data centers, polls show, and the sentiment is profoundly bipartisan. How will that change our politics?
Data centers have a political problem — and Big Tech wants to fix it
A growth engine for the economy is becoming a political albatross. Can messaging change that?
Where Republicans and Democrats stand on AI data centers
Five charts exploring how Republicans and Democrats feel about AI data centers and what that might mean for the road ahead
Is the Left Making a ‘Massive Strategic Blunder’ on Data Centers?
A conversation with Holly Jean Buck, author of a buzzy story about Bernie Sanders’ proposal for a national data center moratorium.
As tech companies race to build data centers, more communities are pushing back
Concerns about electricity bills and local impacts are fueling bipartisan opposition to the massive data centers that power the digital economy, from cloud services to AI chatbots. In Wisconsin, as in other states, the tussles are personal – and fraught.
Data Center Watch
Free weekly updates on the political risks facing American data center projects
I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers
It’s probably not your ideological thing, or mine. It’s about object-level claims about how data centers impact the communities where they’re built, many of which are wrong.
I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers
It’s probably not your ideological thing, or mine. It’s about object-level claims about how data centers impact the communities where they’re built, many of which are wrong.
People Hate Datacenters, Survey Finds
The data drops as Sen. Bernie Sanders calls for a moratorium on datacenter construction. 'We need to take a deep breath. We need to make sure that AI and robotics work for all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.'
Trump's midterm drubbing demonstrates the power of data center opponents
Data center opponents were among the biggest winners of the Democrats' landslide victories in the US midterm elections, pointing to a shifting public mood on AI and, investors said, a possible slowdown of the boom that has propelled US economic growth and stock markets.
AI Data Centers: Big Tech's Impact on Electric Bills, Water, and More via @ConsumerReports
Massive data centers are gobbling up resources across the United States. The boom has just begun—and you may be paying for it.
The American People Really Hate Data Centers
There are at least five different core questions around data centers and their politics.
Are AI data centers coming to your area?
This free, crowd-sourced tracker website is one of the most comprehensive attempts we’ve seen to keep tabs on where new data centers are being proposed. Maps are currently available across 18 states, with data compiled from public sources. You can read about the Data Center Proposal Tracker creator’s methodology here. [Image: Here’s a screenshot from the tracker showing sites around NYC. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-16-100907.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
