The midterms may be amplifying the data center debate, but the industry shouldn’t mistake an election-year spotlight for the source of the backlash.
By Adam Waitkunas
At nearly every data center conference I attend lately, I hear some version of the same prediction: Once the midterm elections are over, the temperature around data centers will come down. I wouldn’t count on it.
There is no question that data centers have become a political issue in 2026. Candidates across the country are talking about electricity rates, water consumption, tax incentives, land use and the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure. Data centers are showing up in campaign advertising and statewide races, as well as contests for county commissions, town boards and other local offices. But focusing too heavily on November risks misdiagnosing what is actually happening.
The election isn’t creating the opposition. The opposition is influencing the election.
And that’s an important distinction for the data center industry.
Much of the pushback we’re seeing continues to originate where data centers are actually being proposed: among residents concerned about what a project could mean for their electricity bills, water supply, noise, property values, traffic, tax policy and overall quality of life. Those concerns don’t disappear when campaign signs come down. In fact, some of the clearest evidence that this movement extends beyond the November midterms has already occurred during primary and local elections.
In Maryland, data center frustrations were cited as a factor when incumbents lost primary races in Frederick and Calvert counties. In Utah’s Box Elder County, two commissioners who supported a controversial data center development lost their Republican primary contests. One of those commissioners subsequently described the data center as the defining issue in his race. We’ve also seen data center issues influence local elections, ballot questions and efforts to unseat local officials elsewhere in the country.
November matters. But it isn’t the beginning or the end of this issue. Local Opposition Is Becoming Better Organized
Local residents are increasingly connecting with organizations outside their communities that can provide information, organizing expertise, messaging and examples of opposition elsewhere. National organizations and networks are also helping connect communities, share resources and amplify local concerns.
Whatever one’s view of these organizations or their positions, the implication for developers is important:
Communities are learning from one another.
Arguments, organizing strategies, research, social media content and tactics that emerge around one project can quickly appear around another project hundreds of miles away. Every contentious project can become a case study for the next community considering a data center proposal. That infrastructure isn’t going to dismantle itself after Election Day.
The Bigger Problem Is Trust
This brings us back to what I believe remains one of the most significant constraints facing data center development: trust. The industry still has a fundamental trust deficit in many communities. Residents too often first learn about projects after land has been assembled, nondisclosure agreements have been signed, zoning changes are underway or elected officials have already been briefed.
Even when there are legitimate reasons for confidentiality during the early stages of development, the perception can quickly become that decisions were made behind closed doors and the community was invited into the conversation only after the important decisions had already been made. Once that perception takes hold, virtually every subsequent discussion becomes more difficult.
Information about water use is viewed skeptically. Economic impact projections are questioned. Noise studies are challenged. Community benefits can be interpreted as an attempt to buy support rather than an investment developed with residents. That isn’t something an election can fix.
Waiting for Election Day Is a Risky Strategy
For developers and operators, there is a larger warning here. Those betting that the political environment surrounding data centers will simply reset after Election Day risk falling behind. The organizations opposing projects aren’t going away. The local residents raising concerns aren’t going away. The networks connecting those communities aren’t going away. And the underlying issues driving much of the opposition — electricity costs, water, noise, land use, tax incentives, transparency and the feeling that communities don’t have enough say in decisions affecting them certainly aren’t going away.
Developers waiting for the political temperature to cool may find themselves entering an even more sophisticated and organized community environment six months or a year from now. The better path is to double down on sustained, hyperlocal community engagement now. That means recognizing that every community is different. It means identifying stakeholders early, listening before messaging, establishing relationships with trusted local voices and giving residents a meaningful role in shaping community benefits. It means putting senior executives in the room when difficult questions are being asked. It means being transparent about power, water, noise, generators, traffic, taxes and other impacts, including acknowledging tradeoffs rather than simply promoting benefits. And increasingly, it means maintaining those relationships through construction and throughout the operating life of the facility.
Most importantly, community engagement needs to be treated as a fundamental part of developing a data center, not simply a communications response deployed once opposition emerges.
The Election Will End. The Trust Deficit Won’t.
The midterms will come and go. Campaign advertising will disappear, candidates will move on and the national political conversation will inevitably shift. But the industry’s underlying challenge will remain. Data centers still face a significant trust deficit in many communities, and that deficit won’t be narrowed by an election result. It will be narrowed project by project and community by community. There is no shortcut.
Developers and operators that recognize this shift and invest in comprehensive, hyperlocal engagement will be better prepared to navigate an increasingly difficult permitting and development environment. Those that wait for Election Day to make the problem go away may discover that the opposition has become more organized while they were waiting.
Election Day may change the political landscape. It won’t change the need to earn community trust.
