Data centers could be the sleeper issue of the 2026 midterm elections

Data centers may be the sleeper issue of the midterm elections.

Fox News reported that Senate candidates are confronting growing voter anger over the electricity costs, water consumption, and sprawling developments associated with artificial intelligence. One recent Gallup survey found that 70 percent of Americans oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their own communities.

Politicians are paying attention. Some are calling for moratoriums. Others are targeting tax incentives or demanding that projects generate their own power. The political temptation is obvious: When voters are worried about higher utility bills and rapid changes in their communities, blaming large technology companies is easier than explaining a complicated energy and infrastructure problem.

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The concerns are real. They should not be dismissed by industry, and they cannot be ignored by elected officials. No family should be forced to subsidize the grid upgrades required by one of the world’s wealthiest companies. Communities deserve honest answers about water use, noise, land, electricity demand, tax incentives, and who will pay for new infrastructure.

But, legitimate concerns are quickly hardening into something far more dangerous: a political campaign against the physical infrastructure of American artificial intelligence.

If that happens, we will repeat one of the most damaging patterns in modern American history.

For decades, the United States surrendered factories, critical supply chains, mineral production, and industrial capacity to foreign competitors. Communities lost jobs, our national security became dependent on adversaries, and Washington eventually spent billions trying to rebuild industries that should never have left.

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We cannot make the same mistake with AI.

Artificial intelligence does not exist somewhere in the cloud. It requires chips, servers, power plants, transmission lines, cooling systems, construction workers, electricians, pipefitters, engineers, and data centers. These facilities are not incidental to the AI economy. They are the factories of the next industrial age.

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China understands this. Beijing is not debating whether it should possess the energy and computing infrastructure necessary to dominate artificial intelligence. It is building. The International Energy Agency projects that data-center electricity consumption will increase substantially in both China and the United States through 2030. If America decides that data centers are too politically difficult to construct, the demand for AI will not disappear. The investment, jobs, technical expertise, and strategic advantage will simply move elsewhere.

That would be a profound failure of American competitiveness.

It would also create a serious political problem for Democrats. Data-center construction has become an important source of work for the building trades. The Associated Press recently reported that data centers account for at least 40 percent of the work hours performed by members of the Columbus-Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council and at least 50 percent for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 in the Washington metropolitan area.

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Those are not theoretical jobs promised years from now. They are jobs for electricians, laborers, operating engineers, pipefitters, and other skilled workers today. Democrats cannot claim to represent organized labor while allowing progressive activists to shut down the projects employing union members.

Republicans should resist a similar temptation. Conservatives have spent years arguing for reshoring, energy dominance, permitting reform, American manufacturing, and competition with China. Those commitments mean very little if they disappear when building the next American industry becomes locally controversial.

The answer is not to wave every project through without conditions. It is to build responsibly and communicate honestly.

Data-center developers should be expected to explain what they are building, how much electricity and water it will require, how they will protect residential ratepayers, and what the surrounding community will receive in return. Utilities and regulators should ensure that large customers pay the costs created by their demand. Projects should pursue closed-loop cooling, on-site generation, long-term power agreements, and other options that reduce pressure on local systems.

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Most importantly, America needs more energy.

Data centers are exposing a problem that existed before the AI boom. Electricity demand from data centers has tripled over the past decade and could double or triple again by 2028. Electricity demand is rising after years of stagnant generation, premature plant retirements, congested transmission systems, and permitting processes that make major infrastructure nearly impossible to build on time. Stopping data centers will not modernize the grid. Building more reliable generation, accelerating transmission, preserving existing nuclear capacity, expanding natural gas infrastructure, and deploying advanced nuclear power will.

Industry also needs to recognize that silence is no longer a strategy. As Sen. Jon Husted told Fox News, data-center companies have not done a good enough job explaining why they should be allowed to develop in communities. He is right.

Americans hear about enormous power consumption, water use, and tax incentives. They need to hear, in plain language, what data centers make possible, which jobs they create, how they support national security, and why domestic computing capacity matters in the competition with China. That education must happen before a project is announced, not after opposition has already formed.

Political leadership means taking voters’ concerns seriously without allowing fear to determine America’s economic future. We can protect ratepayers, demand transparency, give communities a meaningful voice, and still build the infrastructure required to compete.

America has already surrendered too many industries. We cannot cede the next one before most Americans realize the race has begun.