Michael Scherer: “The sudden Democratic revulsion toward Big Tech and all its offspring—data centers, artificial intelligence, tech oligarchs—has defined this midterm election and will likely continue through the early innings of the 2028 presidential campaign.”

“For most of the past few decades, Democrats cast themselves as a futurist party heralding a digital utopia, a posture founded by Al Gore and solidified when Barack Obama traveled to Google’s headquarters in 2007 to announce his presidential campaign’s commitment to ‘use technology to reach ever-expanding horizons.’ Republicans were the ones warning about censorship and centralized power, as corporate executives clumsily adjusted the levers of permissible speech on social media.”

“But partisan passions on tech have been realigning from the moment President Trump delivered his second inaugural address in 2025, with Silicon Valley’s centibillionaires as background props. The president’s hostility toward attempts to rein in AI has solidified the shift.”

The Economist: “Data centers have become a political bogeyman. Voters worry about congested power grids that could eventually push up utility bills and the broader impact of artificial intelligence.”

“Our analysis of polling data suggests Republican strategists have a more immediate concern: these projects appear to be turning their voters blue.”

“Data centers have fast become the political bogeyman of 2026, with nearly every candidate seeking to outfox their opponent in attacks on ‘Big Tech’ and ‘dirty data centers.’ In a September poll, nearly 6 in 10 registered voters in Nevada said they oppose the construction of new data centers,” Nevada Independent reports.

“Not everybody in the state hates them, though: Electrical and construction unions that benefit from data center projects say the facilities can be a force for good in Nevada — and they’re figuring out how they can prove it to everybody else.”

Wall Street Journal: “While pushback against data centers is well-known nationwide, battlegrounds across Ohio and Michigan might become a test case for a question swirling around the midterms: Will voters punish politicians over them?”

“In the Midwest, where sprawling facilities are rising on farmland and former factory sites, the issue has become a—if not the—central political focus.”