In local elections across the country on Tuesday, voters proved data center opposition has transcended party politics. Republican voters in counties that supported President Donald Trump in 2024 by double-digits, for instance, showed that even within a party that typically aligns with pro-business and anti-regulatory policies, data center support can be a career-ending move.

Data centers, facilities that require sizable chunks of local energy, water, and land to fuel the artificial intelligence race without generating the tax income or jobs that are often promised, have become a political flash point in America over the past year as voters flood town halls, city and county committee meetings, and campaign events to voice their opposition. The pushback has been bipartisan, with residents in Los Angeles County’s Monterey Park becoming the first to vote to permanently ban data centers earlier this month. Virginia’s Democratically-controlled state legislature and Democratic governor ended a budget standoff over the state’s data center tax breaks on Monday, agreeing on a new tax on data centers for their energy consumption.

And in GOP primaries Tuesday, many Republican lawmakers who had supported data center expansion found themselves without jobs.

Why We Wrote This

Voters expressed their opposition to the construction of data centers in local elections across the country. Traditionally pro-business Republican incumbents were ousted in primaries after supporting local data center projects.

Utah’s most powerful state lawmaker, Republican State Senate President Stuart Adams, lost reelection after more than two decades in the state legislature, trailing primary opponent Stephanie Hollist by more than 8 points. As chair of Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority, Mr. Adams helped fast-track approval for the Stratos Project: a “hyperscale” data center planned for Box Elder County in northwest Utah, which at full build would be one of the biggest data centers in the world and consume more than double the amount of energy that the state of Utah currently uses per year.

Two of the three Box Elder County Commissioners, who have also faced backlash for their unanimous approval of the project, faced Republican primary contests Tuesday and lost. This was a “message vote,” says Brenna Williams, who has helped lead local opposition, rather than a well-researched one by voters, given that the two commission challengers have not denounced the project and could support it more than the incumbents.

“The commissioners, the Senate, the House, will they get the message after Tuesday that we don’t want it?” says Ms. Williams, who has helped organize the Box Elder Accountability Referendum, or BEAR, a legal push to let voters have a voice on the project.

A BEAR-commissioned poll, conducted by an independent firm, found that more than 70 percent of the county opposed the county’s data center plans. A Gallup poll from March suggests a similar opposition rate nationwide: 7 in 10 Americans said they opposed data center construction in their local area, far more than the 53% who said they oppose a nuclear power plant in their community. And this sentiment was shared across parties, with 75% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans strongly or somewhat opposing local construction of data centers.

The Trump administration has declined to set nationwide recommendations or requirements for data centers. And while Congress considers bipartisan bills that would protect locals from data center-induced high energy bills, there has yet to be any concrete guidance from the legislative branch either. This means that local officials across the country have been at the forefront of the issue, granting approval, setting parameters, and in many cases, the focus of opposition campaigns.

In South Carolina, the Spartanburg County Council has faced so much criticism for approving tax breaks for a local data center that the council withdrew other similar tax breaks. Then on Monday - the day before two Republican council members faced primary opponents - the council took the first step towards passing a 12-month moratorium on new data centers. But the moratorium vote wasn’t enough to save them. On Tuesday, both incumbents were defeated in Tuesday’s primary, and a third Republican on the council, the chair, declined to seek reelection citing the data center controversy as a factor in his decision.

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In Calvert County, Maryland, the three incumbent Republican commissioners, whose votes have prevented a county moratorium on data center activity in the county from passing, all lost to Republican challengers who have voiced opposition to unabated data center construction.

“The message was heard throughout the county—we will stop data centers!” Patti Stueckler, a Maryland real estate agent who unseated one of the incumbents, wrote on her campaign Facebook page Wednesday morning. “Now on to November!”