How the US midterm elections reflected resistance to data centres

Voters rejected data centre development in all but one of the 41 ballot measures addressing the issue during Tuesday’s midterm races. In September, a poll found that 70 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported limiting the construction of new data centres in the United States. But that opposition was tested in Tuesday’s midterm election, with analysts examining key races to see if the public backlash would translate into votes.

According to Data Centers on the Ballot, an election-monitoring project run by Redbud Consulting, voters are on track to reject data centre development in all but one of the contests. Only Harwood, North Dakota, a small town with a population of fewer than 800 people, voted to oppose such limits. The measure it defeated would have required independent reviews of large industrial projects like data centres before they could be built in the area.

Experts say Tuesday’s midterm elections indicate that the debate around data centres has become a bipartisan issue, intertwined with cost-of-living concerns and fears over job stability.