Reported by The Verge AI
As tech billionaires pour record millions into Maine’s high-stakes Senate race, rural voters push back against the resource strain, rising utility costs, and phantom jobs of the AI data center boom.
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Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, was midway through defending her record during the final debate of the midterms when an audience member cut her short.
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“I’m terrified,” a man shouted. “AI data centers are destroying our climate. They are poisoning our water.” Collins brushed off the outburst, tying the man to her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson. But the fear echoing through the auditorium wasn’t so easily dismissed. Just days before voters head to the polls, the rapid expansion of resource-hungry data centers has exploded into one of Maine’s most volatile campaign issues.
Maine drew national headlines in April when the state Legislature passed what would have been the nation’s first statewide moratorium on large data centers — had Gov. Janet Mills not vetoed the bill 10 days later. But the fight hasn’t slowed down, with towns across the state adopting temporary moratoriums or putting the question of data center expansion to voters this November. In a September poll of Mainers by UMass Lowell and YouGov , 76 percent of respondents said they oppose building a data center in their community, with 58 percent strongly opposed.
Maine’s hotly contested Senate race is set to be the most expensive Senate race per capita that the US has ever seen, with Democrats spending a projected $81 million and Republicans $114 million . Much of that campaign cash has come from the very industry Mainers and rural voters across the country have been fighting for more than a year. The outcome of the race will help determine which party controls the Senate and help shape federal data center and AI policy, impacting data center construction not just for Maine residents, but for the entire country.
Maine and other rural states are becoming prime targets for new data centers. While cities run short on land and power,…