Anti-populism is reshaping American politics

Opposing data center construction is one of the most popular positions a candidate can possibly take right now—and those who fail to do so are starting to lose elections.

Will Lawrence, the Sunrise Movement cofounder who ran for Congress in Michigan’s Seventh District, won his primary on Tuesday. In his first major TV ad, Lawrence aimed at “tech billionaires” who he said want to turn Michigan’s farms into data centers that will “jack up our energy bills and ruin our home values.” Abdul El-Sayed, running for Senate in Michigan, used an under-construction OpenAI data center as the backdrop for a rally. “Until we protect local communities from the power of corrupting money and politics, we’re going to continue to see projects like this get pushed,” El-Sayed said.  

Justin Pearson, a progressive candidate in Memphis who made fighting back against xAI’s data center construction a centerpiece of his campaign, just won his Congressional primary, too. 

“Before data centers were all the news every single day, our community was fighting Elon Musk,” Pearson said at a recent press conference. Musk began building data centers in Memphis—and gas turbines to power them—in 2024. People like SpaceX’s billionaire owner, Pearson said, “view these communities as sacrifice zones.” 

But the data center backlash isn’t strictly a Democratic-party issue. It draws on a current of populism—and suspicion of big companies, and fear of AI-prompted job loss—that goes beyond party boundaries. Opposition to data center buildout is nearly as high among Republicans as it is among Democrats. 

That fact could be good news for Pearson. His Memphis-based district had a Democratic-voting, majority Black population, but the district was splintered and redrawn by Republican officials this year following a Supreme Court ruling that gutted the federal Voting Rights Act.

Pearson’s anti-data-center positions could play well with the rural, white, Republican-leaning voters who now make up part of his district. As the industry group Data Center Watch reported in 2025, 55 percent of politicians who have taken public anti-data-center stances are Republicans, who often raise concerns about tax incentives and energy grid strain, as opposed to focusing on environmental concerns. About seven in ten Americans now oppose the idea of a data center being built near them. Even in staunchly red states like Texas and Utah, politicians like Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller are warning those who won’t act on data centers that they might just lose their races. 

“Republicans should be on this issue and we’re not,” Miller told the Texas Tribune this week. “The Democrats are, and they’re right on the issue. I’m not endorsing any Democrats, but we’re going to lose some elections in the midterms because of this one subject.”

Some Republicans are getting that message. Zach Lahn, who won the Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary in June, called for a full data center construction moratorium. Nancy Mace, running for governor in South Carolina, announced that she supports a moratorium, too. Even Ron DeSantis has signed legislation ensuring that “local governments maintain the authority to reject data center development in their communities.” And they’re not the only ones: candidates for governor in at least 12 states are running on data center moratoria, per Newsweek.

Data centers “broke American politics,” as Molly Taft of WIRED recently put it. The New York Times, in May, ran a headline calling data centers “the most bipartisan issue since beer.” Left-wing populists, far-right podcasters, and even the pope have all weighed in. (Will Lawrence, at a press conference, quoted Pope Leo’s recent encyclical on AI and the dangers of irresponsible technology development.) 

“We know this crosses the political spectrum,” Pearson said in late July. “But the reality is the billionaire class are building these data centers in an attempt to destroy our water, to destroy our air quality, to take our land, all so that they can make more money. And at the center of it, that’s what we’re up against.”