Anti-Data Center Candidates Win Across US in Midterm Sweep

Candidates running on explicit anti-data-center pledges won races across the United States in the 2026 midterm elections, delivering a political shock to the AI infrastructure build-out.

The Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress. They gained seven seats in the Senate and 25 in the House, giving them a majority for the second half of Republican President Donald Trump's term. Gubernatorial results point the same direction. Of the 36 governorships up for grabs, 26 candidates across 21 states ran on tickets promising anti-data center legislation. With one result still to come, the Democrats have made five gains.

Data centers became a genuine campaign issue this cycle. Communities across the US rallied against gigawatt-scale campuses planned in many states. The stated concerns: power and water availability, plus the impact of AI on the labor market.

What does this change for the build-out?

President Trump has backed AI companies and data center construction as a vehicle for economic growth. Analysts will read the result primarily as a reaction to rising living costs and the unpopular war in Iran. But opposition to data centers ran wide enough that some formerly pro-industry Republicans turned against it during the campaign, backing moratoriums or other restrictions.

The sharpest signal came from Texas, the second-largest data center market in the world, with 6.5GW of capacity under development. Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated incumbent Republican Greg Abbott, a long-time supporter of the industry. Abbott had introduced a temporary moratorium on new projects earlier this summer, allowing grid operator ERCOT to audit interconnection requests from large load users.

Hinojosa called that moratorium a "scam." She said: "Abbott will likely lift it on November 4, right after the election. The only way Texans are protected is when real laws are passed."

Her campaign platform goes further. It calls for "an immediate moratorium on data centers to last until the legislature can meet to put in place real protections so Texans can have a seat at the table to decide if and how data centers come into their communities."

What happens to Musk's Texas plans?

The Texas result is bad news for Elon Musk. The Trump-backing SpaceX billionaire moved his businesses from California to Texas in 2020, drawn by the low-tax, low-regulation regime. He spent roughly $474 million trying to get Republicans elected in the midterms.

Musk now plans a huge chip factory, TeraFab, in Grimes County, Texas, producing silicon for SpaceX, its AI division SpaceXAI, and Tesla. In June, local councilors granted the TeraFab a 100 percent property tax abatement, angering many residents.

Musk's response to the results was sardonic. He tweeted: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time," adding that "data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now." SpaceX is one of several companies exploring AI compute in orbit.

How did other major markets vote?

Ohio's governorship flipped from red to blue. Amy Acton defeated Vivek Ramaswamy in the race to replace outgoing Republican Mike DeWine.

Acton said before the election that data centers are "undermining Ohio's core values." Her conditions for a moratorium are specific:

• Data centers cover 100 percent of their utility costs
• Construction uses union labor exclusively
• Full operational transparency
• Support for local community needs
• Compliance with Ohio's environmental standards
• Jobs directed to former industrial areas left behind

She added: "Ohio is open for business, but we are not up for sale." Ramaswamy had stopped short of calling for a moratorium.

In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms won a historic victory and will become the first black female governor in US history. She has called for a statewide pause on data center developments. During the campaign she said: "Let us take a pause, assess fully, assess comprehensively, assess the impact that these data centers are having on our environment, on our utility bills, what it means to have them in communities."

Her defeated opponent, billionaire Rick Jackson, is reportedly an investor in a data center project in Bowie County, Texas. He argued county authorities should decide whether to accept data centers, citing the tax revenues they bring.

Who else survived?

Incumbents with restrictive records held their seats. Pennsylvania's Democratic governor Josh Shapiro won re-election after imposing strict data center legislation over the summer. New York's Kathy Hochul also secured another term. Hochul became the first governor to introduce a statewide data center moratorium, a one-year ban introduced in July.

The pattern is consistent across the map. Governors in at least three major data center markets — Texas, Ohio and Georgia — now owe their victories partly to voters hostile to new campuses. For operators with gigawatts of pipeline in those states, the question is no longer whether regulation will tighten, but how fast.