Data center debacle is already roiling midterms and AI companies may need to share the wealth to fix it

Data centers have quickly become a political liability for the entire AI industry — and any elected officials backing them, making it a bipartisan bête noire heading into the 2026 midterms.No wonder AI insiders are scrambling to turn the controversial infrastructure into something positive.This week, Republican Rep.

Nancy Mace called for a one-year freeze on new data centers in South Carolina.In St.

Charles, Missouri, a bipartisan city council went even further, voting 7-1 to ban them entirely.Democratic billionaire and California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer briefly joined the chorus, signing a Greenpeace moratorium on new data centers (though he later explained he merely supports guidelines).A recent Gallup poll found 71% of Americans oppose data facilities being built in their area, which is a higher level of opposition than even nuclear power faces. Some of the backlash is overblown, as the centers have become an easy scapegoat for almost anything that goes wrong near them.“Kids getting stuck on a roller coaster are now blamed on data centers,” Nathan Leamer, executive director of Build American AI, said.

“People are jumping on this as the root of all their problems, and that message spreads so much faster than the truth.”This story is part of NYNext, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC’s power players (and those who aspire to be).President Trump has tried to address the anxiety, pushing AI companies to “pay their own way” on power and create separate rate structures so data centers cover the electricity and grid upgrades they require.The reality is that, in many cases, people are reacting to something completely understandable — they don’t want to look at a sprawling, brutalist building owned by some AI company they don’t trust.Nor do they want the possibility of higher electricity bills.

(The International Energy Agency says US data centers are expe...