Can Local Outrage Over Data Centers Tilt the Midterms? (Rolling Stone, 5/25/26)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/data-centers-ai-unpopular-midterms-1235567776/

Hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing through the artificial intelligence industry and new AI tools seem to be popping up everywhere you look — but most Americans are not big fans of where things are headed. Nearly half of the country holds a negative view of AI, and seven in 10 Americans do not want a data center built in their area. The battle over the construction of these centers has been heating up in recent months, and opposition to them is notably bipartisan.

From red states like North Carolina to blue states like Oregon, communities are forcefully pushing back against plans to build new data centers. Residents in these areas have expressed concerns about electricity prices, water usage, air and water pollution, tax breaks for developers, and familiar landscapes being taken over by Big Tech infrastructure.

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“It’s kind of amazing just how much it’s become such a hot-button issue,” Green says. “I think of it as the sort of issue that brings people together because there are so many things to dislike about it. You may have some people who come to it from an environmentalist perspective, some who don’t want this sort of external industry coming in without their say and some who are concerned primarily about affordability and electricity prices.”

Green says it doesn’t help the AI industry that people see data centers as something that will mainly benefit extremely wealthy tech companies, which weren’t particularly popular even before they started shoving AI in everyone’s face and, with data centers, into their physical communities.

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[a kennedy]

1. Bernie Sanders and Graham Platner we're just talking about it on MSNOW with Chris Hayes.

GOTTA MAKE THIS A HUGH TALKING POINT for Novembers elections. It’s a huge topic we all can get behind.