USA30 August, 20263 min read
U.S. Midterm Campaign Turns Against AI Data Centers As Energy Costs Jump $9.3 Billion
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Energy costs from AI data centers dominate midterm campaign debates. Voters and candidates cite data centers; over $31 million in ads mention them.
5 outlets told this the same way.
Midterms turn on data centers
Opposition to the explosive construction of data centers for artificial intelligence has become a major issue in the midterm legislative elections in the United States, with Democrats and Republicans united against the tech giants. In at least 21 races across 18 states, candidates from both parties have aired television ads this year mentioning data centers, according to marketing reports cited by La Nación Costa Rica and other American outlets.
In 13 states, the increased energy demand from data centers has driven up overall costs by $9.3 billion in a year, a 174% rise, according to Monitoring Analytics cited by La Nación Costa Rica. The backlash is tied to electricity- and water-intensive facilities and noise complaints, with La Nación Costa Rica describing residents near a new data center in Brazoria as saying they were “not supposed to hear it, and not supposed to have our quality of life affected.”
Candidates scramble, Trump pushes
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has blocked approval of data center projects pending a study on water and energy supply impact, while his Democratic opponent in the November elections, Gina Hinojosa, seeks to impose a moratorium on new centers as in New York awaiting stricter safeguards. In Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown has released at least four TV ads accusing his Republican rival Jon Husted of wanting to attract new centers to the industrial Midwestern state when he was governor, according to La Nación Costa Rica. In Wisconsin, Republican Tom Tiffany attacks his Democratic rival, nicknaming him “Data Center David Crowley,” even as La Nación Costa Rica says Tiffany earlier this year praised AI and voted to accelerate construction of the necessary infrastructure.
President Donald Trump, by contrast, has taken the opposite path and is now almost a solitary figure within the Republicans, with his spokesperson Karoline Leavitt saying, “The United States must remain dominant in the AI race, which represents the future,” while the administration urged tech giants to sign a “promise to protect users.” CNN also described how candidates from both parties are scrambling to respond to the backlash, noting that more than 99% of the spending this year went to spots against AI infrastructure projects.
Bots, bills, and spending
Beyond campaign messaging, X said it identified a network of 200,000 accounts as part of an investigation into Chinese accounts suspected of being inauthentic, with 200 accounts described as disseminating comics, images, and texts about AI data centers. In the examples posted by X, the accounts allegedly used OpenAI to produce illustrations and phrasing portraying data center operators as unscrupulous businessmen while ordinary families pay the bill, and 24matins says the visuals matched those spotted by OpenAI in a June report about accounts probably based in China using ChatGPT to create anti-data-center content. CNN reported that more than $31 million has been spent on political ads mentioning data centers so far this year, and that the share of broadcast TV campaign spending mentioning data centers or AI-related spots spiked last month to more than 8% of all campaign spending.
CNN also tied the political shift to utility bills and projected electricity impacts, including a Goldman Sachs analysis projecting a 6% rise in electricity bills nationally over the next year, with the biggest jumps for those living near data centers. The stakes are now reflected in the scale of infrastructure planning, with CNN citing tracking firm Cleanview saying big tech companies are scrambling to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new infrastructure, including more than 2,000 data centers in planning stages.