Ken Paxton unveils four-point plan to restrict data centers in Texas Senate race

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has unveiled his four-point "Texas First Data Center Plan" to restrict data center growth, marking a major policy shift in his tight U.S. Senate race against Democrat James Talarico. The plan proposes federal bans on Chinese technology, criminal liability for AI chatbots that harm children, and state-level restrictions aligned with Governor Greg Abbott's recent approval freeze. Talarico has accused Paxton of hypocrisy, pointing to Paxton's 2013 vote establishing the state's $3.2 billion data center tax exemptions and his receipt of nearly $450,000 in industry donations.

Paxton data center plan

• ▪Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton unveiled his four-point "Texas First Data Center Plan" on August 24, 2026, as part of his Republican campaign for the U.S. Senate.
• ▪Ken Paxton pledged to co-sponsor the DATA Act, a federal bill authored by Senator Tom Cotton that would allow data centers to build off-the-grid power systems exempt from federal regulation.
• ▪Ken Paxton's plan backs Texas Governor Greg Abbott's state-level regulatory push, including banning AI data centers in rural neighborhoods and repealing the industry's sales tax exemptions.
• ▪Ken Paxton's plan proposes federal legislation to ban Chinese technology from U.S. data centers and hold companies criminally liable if their facilities power AI chatbots that undermine children's safety.

Data center political pressure

• ▪The Cook Political Report classified the Texas U.S. Senate race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico as a "toss-up" in August 2026.
• ▪Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico has attacked Ken Paxton for taking nearly $450,000 in campaign donations from data-center affiliated donors while delaying a regulatory decision for Hood County.
• ▪Ken Paxton criticized James Talarico's campaign infrastructure for accepting $10 million from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, an advocate for expanding data centers, through the Lone Star Rising PAC.

Paxton-Talarico policy overlap

• ▪James Talarico's "Hold Data Centers Accountable Plan," released in July 2026, goes further than Ken Paxton's plan by proposing to give local officials veto power over data center projects.
• ▪Both Ken Paxton and James Talarico support terminating sales tax breaks for data centers and requiring the facilities to use closed-loop water systems and fund their own infrastructure costs.
• ▪As a freshman state senator in 2013, Ken Paxton voted in favor of the data center sales tax exemption that helped spark the industry's boom in Texas.

Data center voter backlash

• ▪A June 2026 poll from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that a majority of Texans oppose the construction of data centers in their communities.
• ▪An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey from July 2026 found that 61% of Americans oppose building new data centers in their local areas, up from 49% in March 2026.
• ▪Other Republican candidates, including Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity, have also called for moratoriums or pauses on data center development.

Texas data center boom context

• ▪The Texas state comptroller projects that the data center sales tax exemption will cost the state $3.2 billion in lost revenue over the next two years.
• ▪Texas has 335 existing data centers with more than 248 in development, drawing community concerns over noise, water consumption, and rising electricity bills.
• ▪Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a moratorium on new data center approvals in August 2026 pending a statewide grid audit, claiming the directive halted roughly 1,800 projects.