Inside the Democratic effort to turn outrage over data centers against Ken Paxton and other Republicans
By Patrick Svitek, CNN
(CNN) — As the dust settled on Election Night, Democratic operatives working to elect James Talarico were surprised by the breadth of his victory across Texas’ 254 counties. But even then, one area stood out.
Kaufman County, southeast of Dallas, is the site of two massive data center projects that have sparked local backlash. The largest city in the county, Forney, is already working to outlaw new data centers within its city limits.
The solidly red county was one of 55 counties where a pro-Talarico super PAC, Lone Star Rising PAC, targeted voters within 5 miles of a proposed or approved data center project. The PAC sent them a series of mail pieces and digital ads blaming the project on the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton.
“WARNING,” one of the mailers read, addressing the voters by their first names and adding, “There is an existing or proposed data center near you in Kaufman County. Ken Paxton made it easier to build.”
Talarico carried Kaufman County by 1 percentage point as he notched a striking 12-point victory statewide, helping lead Democrats to statewide victory in Texas for the first time since 1994.
It was one of many examples where backlash to data centers fueled Democrats’ staggering victories in the midterms. From statewide races to local ballot initiatives, voters demonstrated sweeping support for a tougher stance toward data centers, if not outright opposition to their continued development.
About a quarter of voters said AI and data centers were “crucial” to their vote in the midterms, trailing higher priorities such as the cost of living and corruption, according to CNN’s Voter Poll. But when voters were asked about building data centers in their communities, they were overwhelmingly opposed by a roughly 3-to-1 margin.
“It was overwhelming, unequivocal, bipartisan backlash from the bottom up that was showing up in every corner of my district,” said Michigan Rep.-elect Will Lawrence, who flipped a Republican-held House seat after centering his campaign early on opposition to data centers.
GOP candidates had to contend with President Donald Trump’s strongly supportive stance on data centers. By the final weeks of the election, even Trump seemed to concede the AI industry had political problems when he started proposed rebranding AI as “super intelligence.”
Some Republicans are already warning they need a different strategy on the issue for 2028.
The Alliance for a Better Future, a conservative AI policy group, issued a memo the day after the election arguing that it was “impossible to ignore the strong impact Super Intelligence (SI) policy had on this election and how connected it is to economic concerns in particular.” The memo urged Republicans to “recalibrate” and “course correct” ahead of 2028.
One GOP strategist involved in the midterms said any Republicans who want to be competitive in the next presidential race “needs a better playbook.”
“The economy may have been the top issue of this election, but what people are missing is that AI and data centers drove a lot of that angst,” said one GOP strategist involved in the midterms. “AI will likely move to the top of the issue grid in 2028.”
Growing backlash as the midterm cycle went on
Lawrence stood out for how early – and aggressively – he staked his campaign on data centers. His first TV ad of the primary opened with him standing in the middle of a field, warning that “tech billionaires want to turn this whole field into a massive data center that will jack up your energy bills and ruin our home values.”
There was hardly a national firestorm over data centers when Lawrence attended a Howell Township planning board meeting in October 2025 to protest a proposed data center. It was one of several such meetings he went to throughout his campaign.
But by the end of the midterms, it was hard to find a race where candidates were not arguing over the issue, racing to keep up with public opinion that cut across party lines.
Democratic candidates generally talked tough on data centers, and some, such as Lawrence, even pushed federal moratoriums on them. Republicans at times echoed calls for new restrictions but also touted their economic benefits and arguing they were necessary to stay ahead of China in the AI race.
Dan Diorio, a top official at the Data Center Coalition, a trade group, argued the industry needs to do a better job of showing Americans how data centers could address their concerns about the cost of living. He argued residents of Loudoun County, Virginia, are seeing tax relief due to the data center boom there, although Virginia politics have also been reshaped by concerns about spiking electricity costs due to data center demand.
“People need to see it and feel it,” he said.
Ohio was one of the biggest battleground states for data centers.
The winner of the Senate race, Democrat Sherrod Brown, branded GOP incumbent Jon Husted as “the face of data centers,” citing his support for data center investments as lieutenant governor. The line of attack was so potent that the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo in August warning that data centers were “the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”
The NRSC did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Husted sought to neutralize the vulnerability in September by spearheading legislation to combat rising energy costs from data centers. Senate Democrats blocked it.
The battle also played out at the local level. Voters in at least 10 Ohio cities passed charter amendments to ban construction of large data centers, according to the anti-data center group Conserve Ohio. The ballot measure in Granville, which is outside Columbus, received over 80 percent support.
In another red state — South Carolina — Democrat Annie Andrews pulled off a major upset in the Senate after persistently labeling the Republican incumbent, Darline Graham, as “Data Center Darline.” Andrews flipped Colleton County, which voted for Trump by 19 percentage points. It was one of the counties that Andrews visited to speak out against local data center developments.
The issue was a vulnerability for Graham as early as her primary, when she said during a debate that “we have to have data centers.” Her position, which she later moderated, drew attacks from multiple fellow Republicans at the time.
A new super PAC aligned with the data center industry, Building the Future, made a late push for Graham in the general election, spending $2.5 million on her behalf. But that spending fueled further attacks that she was beholden to the industry.
Data centers came up in notable ways in other House races.
Mitchell Berman, the Democrat who defeated Republican Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, ran an ad that showed him shooting a clay pigeon labeled “Data Center.” And in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, Democrat Amish Shah prevailed after bluntly saying he did not want any data centers in his district.
Shah’s Republican opponent, Jay Feely, went for a more nuanced position, the kind that some Republicans are now second-guessing after Tuesday’s wipeout.
“We have to win [the AI race], we can’t let China win it,” Feely said in one media appearance, “but at the same time, you have to be able to talk to the person who doesn’t really care about China and this fight we’re in, who cares about their life. And so you have to make the argument about why data centers are necessary.”
Texas and other states look ahead
In Texas, home to the second most data centers in the country, Talarico was not the only statewide winner who ran on cracking down on data centers. Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa went further than Talarico did and called for a moratorium on data centers until the Legislature could pass “real protections.”
“We need to stop what we are doing with data centers until we have those protections,” Hinojosa told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. “We can have a strong economy, strong industry and protections for the people of Texas. Those things are not mutually exclusive.”
Hinojosa toppled GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who spent months trying to get ahead of the issue with executive actions, even drawing a rebuke from Trump for being “against data centers.”
In the Senate, Paxton agreed with Talarico on some data-center restrictions – but also said there were “plenty of open spaces,” away from neighborhoods, where data centers could be built. That comment was front and center in a digital ad from the pro-Talarico group targeted at people who lived near projects.
Talarico himself ran an ad where he walked through a data center construction site, seeking to explain how “data centers bankroll Paxton, they get tax breaks and you get stuck with the bill.”
“It was most effective where it was tied into broader concerns,” said Charlie Blaettler, political director for the Guardrails Alliance, which positioned itself as a counterweight to the AI industry in the midterms. “I think there was a lot of backlash that was centered on localized fights over data center projects, but I think a lot of candidates did a good job of tying it to affordability and corruption.”
Even as some AI industry advocates lick their wounds, they’re already looking ahead to 2028. That includes Leading the Future, the main industry-aligned super PAC that mostly backed midterm candidates in safe seats.
“We are committed to a multi-cycle effort and 2028 will show who actually cares about passing a national regulatory framework on AI and who wants to politicize an issue that’s extremely consequential to the future of our country,” Jesse Hunt, a spokesperson for the super PAC, said in a statement.
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