Data centers are a political issue crossing party lines, driving voters to candidates

An aerial view of a data center on April 14 in Vernon, Calif. A surge in demand for AI infrastructure is fueling a boom in data centers across the country and around the globe. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

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."