{"id":86560,"date":"2026-11-06T09:09:43","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T14:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=86560"},"modified":"2026-11-06T09:09:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T14:09:43","slug":"the-campaign-issue-that-completely-doomed-gop-candidates-across-the-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=86560","title":{"rendered":"

The Campaign Issue That Completely Doomed GOP Candidates Across The Nation<\/span><\/b><\/h1>"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI data centers also lost big in the 2026 midterm elections<\/h1>\n

Data center projects have proved broadly unpopular in areas where they have been proposed, a sentiment reflected by voters on Tuesday.<\/h3>\n

BY Kristin Toussaint
\nFast Company<\/p>\n

\n

President Donald Trump wasn\u2019t on the ballot this midterm election season, but on some tickets, an industry he wholeheartedly supports was: Ballot measures in more than 30 districts across the country asked voters to weigh in on AI<\/a> data center development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And data centers lost big.<\/p>\n

Voters overwhelmingly chose to ban or pause<\/a> local data center development across 38 out of 41 ballot measures. (The other three measures aren\u2019t yet reporting results, according to Ballotpedia.)<\/p>\n

The ballot questions varied, in some instances asking voters to prohibit data centers in their cities, and in others, asking them to allow data center development, or even to uphold specific data center deals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Where were data centers on the ballot?<\/h2>\n

Not all results are yet in. But it\u2019s still clear that no matter the framing, data centers lost by landslides.<\/p>\n

In Edgewater, Florida, more than 77% of voters approved a ballot initiative to amend the city charter in order to \u201cprohibit the approval, construction, expansion, or operation of new data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Ashville, Ohio, a ballot referendum asked voters to maintain the village\u2019s deal with EdgeConneX for two data centers<\/a> and on-site natural gas across nearly 200 acres. Residents struck it down with more than 81% of the vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Grove City, Ohio, saw one of the closest races<\/a>, but it\u2019s still looking bad for data centers. It looks like voters there still chose to rein in data center development\u2014by requiring public approval for certain projects\u2014with 55% of the vote.<\/p>\n

In 28 of the 38 ballot measures for which Ballotpedia is reporting results, support for banning or pausing data center development hit 70% or more. In 13, it hit 80% or more.<\/p>\n

Strong support for data center critics<\/h2>\n

Data centers didn\u2019t only lose when it came to specific ballot questions, either. Candidates who spoke out against data centers won handily.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In some cases, candidates seemed to sense the public rebuke of data centers early on, and switched their tune.<\/p>\n

Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, for example, was once in support of the AI data center boom. Then in August he signed an executive order to restrict certain projects and require them to be approved by local officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not be bulldozed by the lawyers working for these big tech companies,\u201d he said at the time, according to NBC News.<\/a> He won a second term on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Georgia, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, who won her race for governor, made a statewide data center pause<\/a> a key part of her campaign. Georgia is one of the leading states for data center development.<\/p>\n

Texas, too, is a major data center hub, with more than 781 data centers either operating, under construction, or planned across nearly 300 campuses, according to Cleanview.<\/a><\/p>\n

Outgoing Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who lost his reelection bid, did recently introduce a data center moratorium, but he had backed the industry before, and even raised<\/a> about $9 million from data center donors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Governor-elect Democrat Gina Hinojosa, Abbott\u2019s opponent, called that<\/a> temporary moratorium a \u201cscam.\u201d She campaigned<\/a> on data center opposition, promising a new construction moratorium, an end to data center tax breaks, and tighter regulations around water and power use.<\/p>\n

Across both parties, midterm campaigns and outside groups spent more than $173 million<\/a> in anti-data center ad spending. Democrats led that charge, with $140 million of that spending, versus Republicans with $28 million.<\/p>\n

The data center industry fought back, setting up a super PAC<\/a> that set aside $1.5 million in ads to supporting Republican Darline Graham, who was fighting to keep her late brother Lindsey Graham\u2019s Senate seat in South Carolina.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She lost to Democrat Annie Andrews in what New York Times<\/em> reporter Teddy Schleifer called<\/a> \u201ca black eye for the data-center industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has gone all-in on data centers and AI companies, even writing \u201clet Data Reign\u201d on Truth Social in August.<\/a> Voters clearly disagree.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

____
\nhttps:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91635527\/midterm-elections-2026-ai-data-centers-lost-big-list-state-ballots<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI data centers also lost big in the 2026 midterm elections Data center projects have proved broadly unpopular in areas where they have been proposed, a sentiment reflected by voters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86560"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86563,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86560\/revisions\/86563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}