U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin told swing voters in the Midwest that the fight over AI-linked data centers is being driven by utility bills and fear about the future of work. Speaking after a June 5 appearance in Indianapolis and describing focus groups, she urged D
When U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin walked into the room, she didn’t have to ask what was on people’s minds.
In Speedway, swing voters talked among themselves before she even moderated a discussion over a buffet-style lunch at Big Woods. They circled back to one thing again and again: utility bills. That kept showing up as Slotkin shifted from town-hall questions to a more direct focus-group conversation—one guided by what voters said they cared about. even when the topic was clearly louder than the usual political small talk.
Economic uncertainty kept the group locked in place. One woman described a friend’s daughter who felt discouraged from pursuing work as a paralegal. after hearing that artificial intelligence might wipe out those jobs. A man told Slotkin about Shelbyville Mayor Scott Furgeson’s caught-on-video remarks. saying he had only seen anti-data center signs in front of “shitty houses.”.
Slotkin. a Michigan Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate. was by no means an unbiased facilitator—she was traveling to gather input. and she was also steering her conversation toward a message she clearly believes is urgent. Still. the group’s focus hardened into a pattern she said she hears every day: AI-driven anxiety. carried into public fights that can look like something else entirely.
“Data centers are the new immigration,” Slotkin said, describing how the issue has spread beyond any single party or region. In her telling, voters discuss it in red states and blue cities, with the same kind of heat that once fueled anti-immigration anger in the mid-aughts.
She has begun asking Midwest audiences a not-so-thinly-veiled question: what are voters looking for in 2028?. Her latest stop came on June 5. when she was a guest speaker at the Indiana State Democratic Convention in Indianapolis. where Beau Bayh won the nomination for secretary of state. The tour included town halls and focus groups, and the answers kept landing on a familiar nerve.
Slotkin said she believes voters want a level of charisma that has been missing from American politics. After the Indianapolis conversations. she told the interviewer that she feels like she has “a couple of ounces” when asked about voters’ appetite for charisma. She doesn’t think the country is looking for another staid figure such as George H.W. Bush to lead the nation. She also said she wants the next era to move on from what she described as the empty populism of President Donald Trump.
“I’m looking for serious people who are not boring,” Slotkin said.
Last year, she introduced what she called an “economic war plan” built around jobs, schools, housing, energy and healthcare. In her outline. the middle class sits at the top—“the preeminent issue. ” she said—while housing. energy and healthcare and the future of work. AI and data centers sit downstream.
But what her Indianapolis focus group showed her is that voters are often living from the bottom up. People are getting mad about utility bills. They are taking that anger out on data center proposals. And they’re feeling increasingly uneasy about their place in an AI-dominated economy.
Slotkin pointed to a statistic that voters are already acting on. She referenced that 70% of Americans are opposed to building data centers in their areas, per Gallup. Then she offered the advice she said she can’t stop repeating.
“Fire everyone who’s doing the community outreach for AI data centers, because they’re doing a horrible job,” she said.
There’s a frustration in Slotkin’s criticism that extends beyond communication. In her view, both political parties are failing to meet the moment.
Slotkin said she has Democratic colleagues who are “pure populists,” including those who propose a moratorium and who “don’t want to even touch it.” She described them as preferring to “put a blindfold on and pretend that saying no to everything is actual policy,” instead of offering a path forward.
She also said Republicans are not handling it better. She described Republican colleagues who argue they don’t believe in federal involvement and want “each state and each community” to manage the issue on its own—she said she “doesn’t think that’s right either.”
Her own approach is built around local control paired with federal guardrails. She said she wants to regulate utility rates, water usage and noise tied to data centers. She also wants to ban nondisclosure agreements connected to developments.
For AI-related firms, Slotkin said she wants to compel transparency as they pursue data center projects. She is also calling for what she described as a massive federal buildout for the electrical grid.
Slotkin returned to utility bills as the central pressure point. She said, “I don’t think there’s total appreciation that utility bills could literally be as high as your mortgage or rent.”
She said many politicians talk vaguely about “affordability” instead, and that vagueness—without grappling with what residents may actually pay—has become part of the problem.
The political stakes, Slotkin suggested, are bigger than the latest headline. She argued that the next political era could be shaped by whoever understands the fear Americans feel about AI-driven change.
And she framed her message around urgency. Like the people in her Speedway focus group, voters aren’t waiting for politicians to catch up. They are watching utility bills rise. They are reacting to data center proposals. And they are bringing their anxieties about work. technology and community power into the same fight—again and again—until someone finally answers it with more than slogans.
Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X at @JamesEBriggs.
Elissa Slotkin data centers AI utility bills Indiana State Democratic Convention local control federal guardrails electrical grid affordability Shelbyville Mayor Scott Furgeson Beau Bayh