Politics
Data centre opposition features in US midterms as Democrats win key Senate seats
November 6, 2026 at 06:56 AM
A voter poll found 56% called data centres a major factor and 76% opposed local construction, while Democrats won Senate seats in three high-data-centre states.
- A voter poll for AP and a news consortium found 76% of respondents opposed construction of a new data centre in their community.
- Democrats flipped Senate seats in Texas, Ohio and Iowa, states with 595, 258 and 117 data centres against a 50-state median of 55.
- Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said at the WSJ Tech conference that Democratic midterm wins will make building data centres "a lot harder."
- OpenAI pledged on Thursday to fully pay for its own electricity, one day after the midterm results.