Data Centers Become a Midterm Issue, Even in Brooklyn
Data centers and AI have become a ballot-box issue that could sway some races in the U.S. midterm elections, which are scheduled for November 3. TechCrunch reported the development on October 31, 2026, using a political event in Brooklyn as its entry point.
Newsreel, a media company founded by former Forbes and Newsweek reporter Jack Brewster, hosted that event in a Brooklyn warehouse five days before Election Day. Brewster said the goal was for people to "put their phones away and talk to each other about the election, five days out."
The program combined several formats. Kenneth Schlenker, co-founder of the focus app Opal, joined a fireside chat on "the state of attention." Aryan Banjan, who built the campaign management software Barza, presented a midterm forecast. New York City Council member Chi Ossé also took part in a fireside chat, where he said he doesn't really use AI. A data-center panel featured Maia Woluchem, a technology and human rights researcher, and Hilary Flint, an environmental and public health advocate.
The most pointed moment came when the moderator asked the room, "Who here is pro-AI data center?" The crowd booed.
The wider numbers point the same way. A Data Center Watch report found almost $200 billion in data center projects were delayed, stalled, or blocked in the first half of 2026 because of political and community opposition, according to TechCrunch. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, New York, and Virginia are considering more guardrails and transparency around the rapid development of these facilities. Hundreds of new data centers are planned in Virginia, which has been described as the "data center capital of the world."
On the ballot itself, Reuters reported on October 29 that voters in 10 states will see data center-related initiatives on their ballots on Election Day. Ballotpedia counts at least 50 local ballot measures on data centers in 13 states, including Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Maine.
Public sentiment is moving in the same direction. Brookings reported that opinion has swung from cautiously optimistic to largely negative, with concerns centered on electricity rates, water use and job creation. An August opt-in online poll of 1,040 registered voters in Arizona found 57% oppose construction of more large data centers, according to CBS News.
Politico reported on October 31 that the administration's AI push has collided with the data center backlash in a midterm test. Financial markets are tracking the same friction. Reuters reported on October 22 that investors see risk to the AI trade, the bets investors place on companies building AI infrastructure, from the midterms as the backlash builds. As of October 29, traders had bet $133 million on the 2026 midterms across Kalshi, Polymarket and Polymarket US, which are prediction markets where people trade on election outcomes. Reuters reported on October 30 that the elections, corporate earnings and the monthly jobs report would test stock investors the following week.
The broader context here is that a data center now touches several political questions at once: utility rates, water allocation, local land use and employment. Each of those is decided at a different level of government, which is why a single project can become a county ballot question while also affecting a capital-markets narrative about AI spending. Operators that once negotiated mostly with utilities and zoning boards now face a public that has learned to organize around the same facilities.
In my view, the more useful question for the industry is not whether the backlash is real, but which of the proposed guardrails and disclosure rules will actually be written into law. Transparency requirements on power draw, water consumption and siting could give communities the information they say they lack, and could also slow projects that would otherwise have proceeded with little scrutiny. Either outcome is a plausible consequence of the current debate.
I have covered enough infrastructure buildouts to know that the technology tends to outlast the first wave of resistance. Cloud facilities and cellular towers faced similar local fights, and both eventually became ordinary parts of the landscape once siting, noise and power standards were settled. Whether data centers follow that arc depends on whether the rules that emerge from this election cycle are specific enough to be enforced, and whether the operators treat disclosure as a condition of building rather than a concession.
