The artificial intelligence data center boom hit a roadblock on election night, further complicating plans for the tech industry’s historic expansion.
According to Ballotpedia, 41 local measures passed Tuesday in 10 states that would impose restrictions on data center construction in different ways.
Voters came out against data centers in every measure but one in Harwood, North Dakota, according to an analysis by Ballotpedia and additional results collected by CNBC on Wednesday.
The town of Harwood voted against an amendment to the charter rules that would have required additional review before the town approved industrial developments, including data centers.
In Ohio, where Democrat Sherrod Brown ousted Republican Sen. Jon Husted after calling the outgoing president “the face of data centers,” 21 local measures were up for a vote, according to Ballotpedia.
The Buckeye State, named America’s Best State for Business in 2026 by CNBC, has become a key battleground on the issue.
OpenAI announced in August that it had secured 8 gigawatts of computing capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio, the largest planned AI data center campus in the world. The first phase of construction is expected to begin this year and the capacity is expected to be commissioned in stages starting in 2028, according to the project website.
SoftBank and SB Energy are developing the Ohio data center campus in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy. SoftBank is a major investor in OpenAI, and the two companies announced plans to invest $1 billion in SB Energy earlier this year.
Nvidia also supports the project, which could cost more than $500 billion in total.
The Ohio governor’s mansion also turned blue when Democrat Amy Acton, a physician, defeated Republican businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Acton supports a “conditional moratorium” on data centers to ensure they cover 100% of utility costs and “are built exclusively with union workers.”
Backlash at the polls
Heading into the election, the AI business was already struggling on Wall Street, with chipmakers, neoclouds and other data center-related companies selling off their assets in October amid concerns about rising interest rates and excessive spending. Hyperscalers — Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft And Meta – are each spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on AI infrastructure to meet what they see as insatiable demand. All of these companies, with the exception of Microsoft, thus turned their cash flows negative.
Getting data center projects off the ground may have become much more difficult.
According to Ballotpedia, communities in California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, New Jersey, Nevada and Wisconsin also went to the polls to voice their opinions on the issue, and data centers were a key motivator for voters in voting issues.
In a CNBC poll of voters, 56% of voters said data centers were a crucial or major factor in their decision, with Democrats ranking this issue higher than Republicans.
Democrats who campaigned on halting or regulating new projects won key races in Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia and Texas, which are on track to become the world’s largest data center market by 2030.
In one of the most important results of the night for Democrats, Gina Hinojosa unseated Gov. Greg Abbott after he blamed the Republican incumbent for the rapid construction of data centers across Texas, saying he was putting the interests of the tech industry ahead of local communities.
Silicon Valley has spent record sums trying to shape the 2026 midterm elections, with the Republican Party enjoying a sizable advantage among the election’s biggest donors. According to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission records, 14 of the 20 largest donor groups have supported Republicans almost exclusively. Interests related to crypto, AI and online gaming pumped in over $377 million.
Elon Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars this election cycle, came up largely empty.
“Data centers in space look pretty attractive right now,” Musk wrote in an article on X.
The Texas results appear to be a wake-up call for the AI industry as a whole.
Responsibility for AI
A few hours after the polls closed, Democrats were already demanding that Amnesty International leaders testify under oath.
Among the first to grasp the results was Rep. Greg Casar, the Texas Democrat who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“The House Democratic majority must make it a priority to protect American jobs, freedom and lives against AI billionaires,” Casar said in a statement after Democrats won the House. “CEOs of AI companies should be called to testify under oath.”
Casar also accused Republicans of being “bought and paid for by AI billionaires,” arguing that voters had rejected that influence and warning Democrats to “hold them accountable instead of cashing their checks.”
He said the fight against data centers is just the beginning.
“The revolt against data centers was one of the main issues in the 2026 elections,” he said. “And in a few years we will look back on this as the first earthquake of a much larger earthquake that will upend American politics.”
— Ashley Capoot of CNBC contributed to this article.
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