Two months after OpenAI and Oracle broke ground on a massive data center campus in Saline Township, Michigan, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed held a rally in front of the site, using the controversial project as a backdrop for his insurgent campaign.
"I stand with local and state elected officials saying that we cannot approve any more of these until we have federal-level guardrails," said El-Sayed with community activists standing by his side.
Data centers, the giant, windowless, server-filled buildings are the backbone of the AI boom. They are also deeply unpopular. A Gallup poll from earlier this year found 7 in 10 Americans oppose the construction of an AI data center in their area. So, perhaps it's not a surprise that candidates across the political spectrum are trying to tap into the backlash.
El-Sayed narrowly won his primary earlier this week, and while data centers weren't the centerpiece of his pitch to voters, they do tie into key themes of his campaign — populist economics and getting money out of politics.
"Unless and until we protect local communities from the power of corrupting money and politics, we're going to continue to see projects like this get pushed on to local communities despite themselves," El-Sayed said.
In Ohio, the Republican nominee for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, released an "Ohioans-first data center pledge" this week, which called for legislation and, until it passes, a moratorium on data center construction in the state.
"A top concern I hear from Ohioans across our state — second only to property taxes — is the accelerating pace of data center expansion," he said in a statement released by his campaign. "The data center industry has badly failed to earn the trust of millions of everyday Ohioans."
Among the complaints he said he has heard are rising electric bills, noise, pollution and "the absence of clearly defined economic benefits for Ohio families." Ramaswamy even called for data center companies to cover the power bills of people who live nearby.
This followed Ohio Democratic candidate for governor Amy Acton's plan for a "conditional moratorium" on data centers released last month along with a broadside that "Ohio cannot trust Vivek Ramaswamy to protect communities from his fellow big-tech billionaires."
In Michigan's 7th Congressional District, Democrat William Lawrence didn't set out to campaign against data centers. But it quickly became a key plank in his platform because voters kept bringing it up to him.
"It wasn't something that I expected to be part of the campaign last August because data centers weren't on our radar," said Lawrence, who won in a primary against two more moderate Democrats. "But there have been four data centers proposed in the district since I declared my candidacy."
In Wisconsin, calling for a moratorium on data center construction has helped Francesca Hong build a broad coalition as she runs for the Democratic nomination for governor. She talks about data centers a lot and voters are noticing.
"It's time to press control+alt+delete to put a stop to this AI data center crisis, a full moratorium until we have the new regulations we need to protect our energy costs, our economy, our environment," Hong said in a video released by her campaign.
Voting ends Tuesday in Wisconsin and recent polls show Hong favored to win.
At a recent Hong campaign event, supporter Peggy McCrumb didn't hesitate when asked why she backs the candidate.
"I don't think anyone wants data centers, and she's the only one who stands up against it," McCrumb said. "So she's actually listening to what people want."
Hong is a democratic socialist. But this issue cuts through the usual partisan divides, says Amanda Litman, the founder of Run For Something, which works with Democrats running for state and local office.
She says these data centers are the most tangible, physical representation of the threat people perceive from AI, whether it's higher energy prices or making jobs obsolete.
"We're hearing it from urban, from rural, from suburban," Litman said of data center anxiety. "We're hearing it in red states, blue states, purple states. It's all kinds of communities, which I think is really speaking to how visceral people feel this is coming for them."
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