Voters across the United States rejected data centre development in all but one of 41 ballot measures in Tuesday’s midterm elections, and the incoming Democratic majority in Congress is threatening a sharper regulatory turn for the AI infrastructure boom — a turn Wall Street registered almost immediately.
Voters said no to data centres nearly everywhere they were on the ballot. Restrictions were approved in 44 of the 45 elections where counting was complete, according to Redbud Consulting’s Data Centers on the Ballot project, with a single measure in Harwood, North Dakota, the only one rejected by voters. Two races were still being counted, but both were expected to end in majorities against the projects.
Republicans Joined Democrats in Voting No
The resistance crossed party lines, and the poll numbers predicted it. A September poll found that 70 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported limiting new data centre construction. CBS News exit polls found a majority opposed to a data centre in their community, and that most self-identified Republicans shared that resistance even as they voted Republican.
The CNBC Voter Poll found 56 percent of voters called AI and data centres a crucial or major factor in their vote, and 65 percent of those voters backed a Democrat for Congress.
James Mercer, founder of Metro Colo Advisory, told Al Jazeera that voters push back on a building down the road that needs as much power as a small city.
The construction boom they were voting on is enormous. As of April, the Pew Research Center estimated there were already 3,000 data centres in the country, with more than 1,500 others in progress.
Hinojosa’s Texas Win Weighs Most
Gina Hinojosa’s win over Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas may matter most for the industry. Texas is home to 27 percent of planned data centre capacity, according to Wells Fargo, and per Jefferies an estimated 13.3 gigawatts of announced projects are at risk under the moratorium Hinojosa has backed. In late October she was blunt about her plans: When I am governor, I will issue a moratorium, a ban, on all data center approvals until laws can be passed by the legislature to protect Texans.
Winners in other states made the issue central. In Ohio, Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown told his victory speech, I do not work for data centers.
South Carolina Democrat Annie Andrews, who flipped a Senate seat, had branded her opponent Sen. Darline Graham data center Darline
during the campaign. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro, who signed an executive order in August to slow data centre development, said the folks in local communities get the final say.
Per AP, 32 of 34 victorious gubernatorial candidates support stronger regulation, and twelve support bans or moratoriums. Morgan Stanley flagged Ohio — where Democrat Amy Acton won the governor’s office — as creating significant risk of project delays in that state.
In Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was already calling the results a mandate on X: National data center moratorium now,
he wrote, adding that Americans don’t want Big Tech oligarchs wrecking the environment, gutting jobs and threatening humanity’s future.
Wall Street Sold Off, Then Partly Recovered
Nvidia lost $450bn in market value in a single trading day. AI-related stocks fell in premarket trading on Wednesday after the Democratic wins, and the selling deepened on Thursday before the chipmaker rebounded Friday, gaining 4 percent in early trading while remaining down 6.8 percent over the previous five days.
CoreWeave fell Thursday before climbing 6.6 percent on Friday — still down 16 percent over five days. The Nasdaq sank 11 percent below its all-time high.
Analysts see the political turn as a direct threat to the build-out’s economics.
The industry’s own voice, for now, sounds conciliatory. Brittany Kaiser, CEO of Alpha Compute, told Fox News Digital that the results make her and her investors pause on where to invest, though she noted relocating projects already underway is complicated once land, power agreements and capital are committed. It's just let's sensibly regulate and move forward in a way that is positively impactful for communities,
she said.
The concrete unknowns are now political rather than financial: whether the new Congress actually delivers a moratorium fight, and whether governors like Hinojosa govern as they campaigned.
Earlier coverage: Voters and officials signal resistance to AI data center expansion
