President Donald Trump has clashed with local communities and members of his own party over the rapid expansion of AI data centers. While Trump has aggressively defended the facilities, stating that opposing them makes communities 'backwards and poor,' public backlash has intensified ahead of the midterms. Polls show 57% of Texans and 41% of Americans oppose local data centers due to fears of rising utility bills and grid instability. In response, governors like Greg Abbott of Texas and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania have frozen grid connections and tightened regulations, while the pro-AI group Build American AI has launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to counter the backlash.
Data center construction backlash
- ▪An August 2026 poll by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that 57% of Texas voters oppose data center construction in their communities.
- ▪The Texas Politics Project poll in August 2026 showed that 45% of Texas respondents disapprove of how state leaders and the Legislature have handled data centers.
- ▪A July 2026 Politico poll found that 41% of adult Americans oppose data centers being built within three miles of where they live, while 24% support them.
Trump pro-data center stance
- ▪During an August 19, 2026 White House event with tech executives, President Donald Trump stated that local governments should absolutely want data centers for their jobs and tax revenue.
- ▪President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on August 31, 2026, that the only reason communities should not want data centers is if they want to be backwards and poor.
- ▪President Donald Trump claimed on August 21, 2026, that he mandated data centers to build their own electricity so they do not draw power from the public grid.
Republican midterm electoral vulnerability
- ▪Vice President JD Vance expressed sympathy for local data center opposition on August 31, 2026, noting that backlash occurs when facilities cause higher utility bills.
- ▪The National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a memo that data centers are dragging down the re-election campaign of Ohio Senator Jon Husted.
- ▪Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa has campaigned on a proposed moratorium on new data centers to allow the legislature to write regulations.
Grid connection freeze policies
- ▪Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order on August 18, 2026, establishing stricter permitting requirements for data center projects of 25 megawatts or more.
- ▪Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order in August 2026 freezing new grid connections for data centers and mandating a comprehensive audit of the facilities.
Electricity demand concerns
- ▪In March 2026, tech companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI signed a White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge to cover their own infrastructure costs.
- ▪A Reuters review of utility and grid data found that electricity requests from large power users, mostly data centers, exceed 700 gigawatts across parts of the United States.
- ▪Since 2023, requests from data centers and other large energy users to connect to the Texas grid have risen from 48 gigawatts to over 474 gigawatts.
AI industry lobbying campaigns
- ▪The Build American AI ad campaign will initially target the election battleground states of Kansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
- ▪The pro-AI advocacy group Build American AI launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign on August 31, 2026, to counter public backlash against data center construction.
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