Reported by The Verge AI
In ballot measures and exit polls, voters across the country rejected unrestrained development.
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Data center developers are poised to face a more restrictive building environment after voters across the country voted in candidates who favor moratoriums and ballot measures that put more obstacles on their expansion, delivering a stinging blow to a central pillar of the AI industry.
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Of voters polled by NBC News on Election Day, 76 percent said they opposed data centers in their communities. Dozens of local communities voted directly to restrict development through ballot measures . And upset winners like Texas Democratic Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa and Michigan’s Democratic Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed support moratoriums on development.
It’s hard to draw a direct line from data center backlash to the election of any of these candidates, and there were still some races where candidates who favored more limited restrictions on data centers prevailed. Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who previously lauded development in Florida, was elected as governor, and Iowa’s Democratic Governor-elect Rob Sand opposed a moratorium that his challenger favored. But even these candidates were forced to engage on data center issues during their campaigns, and will be likely to face continued pressure to put at least some guardrails in place.
Voters were faced with questions about data centers directly in 45 local ballot measures nationwide. As of Wednesday morning, according to a site compiled by Redbud Consulting , the results of 33 of those will restrict data center development. The Town of Wells, Maine, favored a 180-day moratorium on large data centers, backdated to mid-June 2026. Several cities in Ohio voted to ban data centers over 25MW. The City of El Dorado, Kansas , voted to ban data centers with peak electrical load over 10MW for 10 years.
Dozens of local communities voted directly to restrict development
Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa will take over the governor’s seat from Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, marking a major Democratic flip in a state with the second-highest number of planned data centers. Hinojosa supports…