Data-Center Backlash Now Dominates $31M in Midterm TV Ads

More than $31 million has been spent on political ads mentioning data centers this year, and more than 99% of it has funded spots against them, CNN reports. A year ago the topic drew less than 1% of TV campaign spending; last month, more than 8%.

"Why is my electric bill going up?" a voter asks a chatbot in one Texas ad. Candidates in at least 21 races across 18 states have aired data-center ads this cycle, NBC News reports, with a September poll finding only 44% of Americans would welcome a data center nearby. Public opinion has shifted 12 points against new data centers between March and July, Time reports; 150 localities passed bans in the last month alone, bringing the total to more than 500 jurisdictions.

President Trump has held his line. "Communities that don't take a data center, they're making a mistake," he said. Florida Republican Byron Donalds, who spent more than $2 million on a single primary ad, was blunter: "There ain't no bans coming."

The rest of the GOP is drifting.

An internal Republican memo about former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown's use of the issue read, simply, "Brown is using it because it works." Wisconsin Democratic candidate David Crowley captured the emerging bipartisan hedge: "All data centers are not all created equal." The numbers underneath the ad wars explain the drift: the U.S. has roughly 1,600 data centers, accounting for 4% of national electricity consumption, and Virginia alone has 184, consuming about 25% of the state's power.

New York magazine framed the backlash as looming over the midterms; the piece was shared this week by two AI-policy watchers in our Who's Who directory.