Bipartisan backlash to AI data centers faces a deadline

bipartisan backlash – Texas moves to rein in data center expansion while New York hesitates on a one-year moratorium. Across the U.S., polling shows unusual cross-party opposition to AI-ready facilities as 2026 brings stalled projects, rising energy costs, and fierce debates over w

By the time Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled sweeping recommendations this month to rein in data center development. Texas had already been cast in a familiar role: a place seen for welcoming new development with open arms. Abbott—who has backed President Donald Trump—urged Texas lawmakers to aggressively regulate the tech industry in the middle of a boom that’s been reshaping the politics of energy and natural resources.

Across the country, New York is facing the same pressure from a different direction. Gov. Kathy Hochul. leading a Democratic state known for regulatory restrictions. has declined to say whether she will sign a first-of-its-kind bill passed by her legislature imposing a one-year moratorium on large-scale data centers.

The contrast lands like a clue: data centers have become one of the rare issues where the partisan script isn’t working the way it usually does.

Facilities built to house massive amounts of computing equipment are spreading quickly across the United States to meet the tech industry’s push for artificial intelligence. These AI-ready data centers. the reporting describes as consuming more energy than traditional cloud-computing centers already used to host and store parts of modern digital life. have turned into a political flashpoint.

The backlash is arriving fast—so fast that local and state politics from coast to coast are being reshaped as Americans grapple with high energy costs, natural resource depletion, and the ripple effects of megadevelopment.

Polling shows just how unusual the resistance is. Some 70 percent of Americans oppose local construction of AI data centers. with 75 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Republicans against them. Additional survey data complicates the story further: there are more conservative Republicans who oppose data centers in their local area than moderate Republicans—53 percent of conservative Republicans opposed. compared with 44 percent of moderate Republicans. Anthony Leiserowitz. director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. put it bluntly after seeing the numbers: “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a chart where conservative Republicans are closer to liberal Democrats than liberal [and] moderate Republicans are.”.

That cross-party friction has helped fuel a burst of activism. Data center opposition has stalled or blocked at least 75 projects worth roughly $130 billion in the first three months of 2026 alone. according to organizers and political scientists tracking the backlash. But the momentum doesn’t appear to come from a single ideology; it’s tied to recurring local grievances that show up community after community: rising electricity bills. water scarcity. noise. land use. tax breaks. distrust of tech companies and the billionaires who own them. and the fear that communities are being asked to share their resources without getting much in return.

Still. experts caution that it may be too early to know whether this anti-data center opposition will hold its shape as politics intensify. The backlash could push a broader questioning of Big Tech’s power in American life and lead to real guardrails in an industry with few currently in place. Or it could be. they warn. an early phase before political tribalism pulls the issue back into the usual culture-war framework—alongside fights over climate. energy. housing. and other flashpoints.

Even where the resistance looks like a single national movement, the fight is often not one fight. Experts say there are more than 800 groups working across 49 states to oppose some 1. 500 planned data centers. giving the backlash a scale that’s hard to ignore. But for the people showing up in town halls and planning meetings, the reasons can diverge sharply.

A community in Virginia might focus on different concerns than a municipality in California. Within local fights, people may turn up for light pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, or existential fears about AI.

Research summarized in the reporting also suggests Republicans and Democrats tend to emphasize different risks. “Republican officials often raise concerns about tax incentives and energy grid strain. while Democrats tend to focus on environmental impacts and resource consumption. ” according to a report from Data Center Watch. a project run by the AI firm 10a Labs that keeps tabs on local data center activity.

In Box Elder County. Utah. where Trump won nearly 80 percent of the vote in 2024. a 40. 000-acre data center project backed by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary is facing intense backlash from rural conservative voters. The opposition is tied to perceived impacts on the rapidly drying Great Salt Lake. as well as the project’s electricity and property tax breaks. In left-leaning Monterey Park. California. earlier this month. voters approved a ballot measure permanently banning data centers. aiming “to protect air quality. drinking water resources. and public health.”.

What binds these disparate fights together is also partly about who’s leading the boom—and whether people see them as partners or symbols.

The executives behind the data center surge are familiar names: Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. OpenAI’s Sam Altman. and others. One nonprofit advocate used a comparison to capture why that familiarity matters. “No one can name the CEO of Exxon Mobil. ” said Alex Beauchamp. northern regional director at Food and Water Watch. which has been pushing for the New York data center moratorium. Beauchamp said the reaction is different with tech leadership: “That’s not the case with tech CEOs. ‘These guys are real, actual villains to a lot of people,’ he added.”.

That kind of anger has been building as tech firms grew larger and more powerful. expanded their ties with the federal government. and laid off tens of thousands of employees while spending billions on data centers. The reporting says just four tech companies are projected to spend a total of $670 billion on AI-related infrastructure this year.

Polling suggests the public’s trust in tech leadership is eroding. Just 7 percent of voters in a recent survey said they trust tech CEOs to make decisions that affect their lives.

And for voters who are already stretched, the numbers hit harder. The rise in the cost of living is making communities especially sensitive to how data centers may affect electricity bills and public resources.

Dana R. Fisher. director of the Center for Environment. Community. and Equity at American University. linked the frustration to the way energy prices ripple through everything. “We have this war that is making all prices go up. energy prices go up. so people are super aware of the ways that building other infrastructure in their towns is potentially going to make their access to less expensive energy impossible. ” Fisher said. referring to the Iran War. “I think that works really well across ideological lines.”.

But that “working really well across ideological lines” may not last. Experts warn that as the 2026 midterm elections approach. politicians may try to claim the issue and convert it into another political tool. Megan Mullin. a professor of public policy at the University of California. Los Angeles. cautioned that when an issue grows national enough to attract major partisan attention. the forces of partisanship can overwhelm it. “Issues that can unite people across partisan lines. once they attract that broad political attention. the forces of partisanship tend to overwhelm everything else. ” Mullin said.

Food and Water Watch’s Beauchamp said he’s watched this cycle before. He pointed back to New York’s 2014 fracking ban. where the state became the first with underground gas reserves to ban the practice of shooting water at high speeds horizontally through buried rock. In the years leading up to the ban. he said. New Yorkers shared many of the same concerns voiced today by data center activists—risks to local water supplies. contributions to air and noise pollution. and heavy industrial activity arriving in rural areas unaccustomed to industry.

After New York banned fracking, Beauchamp assumed other states would follow. Instead. the issue became deeply partisan. as fossil fuel lobbyists and Republican officials portrayed anti-fracking efforts as a green strategy to undermine energy production and hurt working-class communities. As of today, only five states have a fracking ban on the books. Beauchamp also recalled that Kamala Harris’ 2019 campaign vow to ban fracking became a point of attack used by Trump during the 2024 presidential contest.

Beauchamp said the parallel with data centers is starting to look familiar. “This feels to me like the early days of the fracking fight,” he said. “A lot of Republicans were really up in arms about it in the beginning, and then it slowly became a partisan issue.”

Not everyone is conceding that fate. Evan Sutton. founder of the communications consulting firm Firekit Campaigns. has been helping opponents of data centers connect with one another across the country. He sees the current backlash as a rare moment where coalitions could form differently. “It’s a moment to re-scramble people’s brains and build new cross-partisan alliances,” Sutton said. “It’s a remarkable and probably very rare opportunity to create something different.”.

With Abbott pushing for aggressive regulation in Texas and Hochul withholding clarity on New York’s one-year moratorium bill. the question for communities is immediate: will this unusual convergence across parties continue—or will the issue be pulled back into the familiar politics of who gets blamed. and who gets protected. as the 2026 campaign calendar closes in?.

data centers AI-ready infrastructure bipartisan backlash Texas Greg Abbott New York Kathy Hochul moratorium Gallup polling artificial intelligence energy costs water scarcity Great Salt Lake Kevin O’Leary Monterey Park ballot measure Food and Water Watch fracking ban comparison 2026 midterm elections