Why Republicans Are Turning Against Data Centers Ahead of the Midterm Elections

Welcome Home Power play! Each week, senior writer Molly Taft examines the biggest issue of the midseason: data centers. If you have questions or comments about this column, email Molly at [email protected]. You can also contact us securely on Signal at mollytaft.76.

Conservative voters are growing skeptical of data centers

Molly McCann Sanders has a lot in common with many of the women who helped Donald Trump win a second term as president. A pro-life Catholic who lives in Texas, she holds staunchly conservative views on immigration and eminent domain—the practice of the government taking private property for public use.

Sanders, president of the Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund founded by Phyllis Schlafly, also describes herself as a “grumpy MAHA mom” and says she is particularly focused on data centers.

“I’m nervous about the idea that these data centers could be broken into and contaminated,” she told me. “I’m not a data center expert. I’m not a technology expert. But I’m skeptical and cautious, so I want to take it slow.”

She loves President Trump, “but I think he’s wrong about data centers,” she says. Sanders also believes the Republican effort at the party’s midterm convention earlier this month to woo what she called the “laptop crowd”—young, tech-obsessed people—was a major failure as the midterm elections approach.

McCann-Sanders is not alone. A poll released last week by The New York Times found that more than 60 percent of Americans, including 47 percent of Republicans, oppose building data centers.

In August, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a private memo warning that “no campaign or party committee can fix the toxic branding of an entire economic segment” as AI companies sounded the alarm over how voters perceive data centers.

Last week, Republican strategist Tony Fabrizio issued a memo to the party’s candidates, arguing that “unconditional support for building more AI data centers is a disadvantage.”

Trump’s support for AI creates a problem for Republicans

Republicans face a major hurdle: Trump himself. In recent weeks, President Trump has redoubled his defense of data centers and artificial intelligence amid increased scrutiny of his policies and support for the industry.

In late August, he wrote on Truth Social that only communities that want to be “backward and poor” will refuse to allow data centers to be built in their cities.

Last week, he posted another series of messages promoting AI data centers. Users on his own Truth Social platform pushed back. An analysis by The New York Times aggregated thousands of responses and found that anti-data-center and anti-AI comments outnumbered positive comments four to one, including comments from solid MAGA accounts.

Sanders said she sometimes “misses” Trump’s outlandish statements, but she cannot completely overlook his pro-data-center rhetoric.

“That’s not the right way to do it,” she says of Trump’s “backward and poor” posts. “We have legitimate concerns. There are real issues.”

Why the White House is pushing data-center development

My colleague Hugo Lowell covers the White House and writes for us. In the Inner Loop newsletter, he said he was not surprised by President Trump’s position.

“He’s bullish on AI,” Lowell told me. “He was told that limiting data-center development would mean limiting computing, which would mean the United States would lose to China.”

This view of competition with China is publicly echoed by technology accelerationists and White House allies, including former White House AI czar David Sachs and investor and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.

Lonsdale was discussed at a supplementary event during the convention with Steve Bannon’s technical editor, Joe Allen, whom I introduced last month. Sanders said the conversation between Lonsdale and Allen was the only time she heard data centers discussed during the entire midterm conference.