These Midterm Races Will Decide Data Centers’ Political Fate

Welcome back toPower Play! Each week, senior writer Molly Taft tackles a topic around this midterm season’s biggest issue: data centers. If you’ve got a question or thought for the column, feel free to shoot Molly an email at[email protected]or reach them securely on Signal at mollytaft.76.

From surveillance and DOGE to Big Tech money and religious extremism, the midterms havenever been more WIRED. Data centers are no exception: The public has rapidly turned on them since the beginning of the year.

The opposition is bipartisan, with many Republicansmaking a rare breakfromPresident Donald Trump. Candidates on both sides of the aisle are trying to attack their opponents for being pro–data center (or not anti–data center enough). I’ve spotted at least five candidates who have been given the derogatory “Data Center [Name]” moniker by their opponents, in an attempt to highlight their connections to the industry. (That includestwoguys named Derek/Derrick getting this treatment.)

While polling shows that pocketbook issues are likely to be top of voters’ minds,data centers are a potent-enough issuethat they could swing tight races—and ultimately tip the balance of power in Congress. Here are some of the races WIRED is keeping an eye on as we approach November 3.

Senate

The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo in August warning that Democrat Sherrod Brown, running for Senate inOhio, was hitting his opponent, Senator Jon Husted, so hard on data centers that it could tip the outcome of the race, calling it “a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle.” Brown has called Husted “the face of data centers in Ohio,” runningadsthat blame Husted for welcoming data centers to the state and driving energy bills up.

Senate Democrats have taken up Brown’s cause, torpedoing a bill sponsored by Husted and modeled after theWhite House’s ratepayer protection pledge, with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling the bill “toothless.”

Data centers have also seeped into many other toss-up Senate races, including inMichigan, Iowa,andTexas. But the Ohio race is still the top one to watch here.

House

All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs, and data centers have become flash points in dozens of races across the country. Among races labeledtoss-upsby the Cook Political Report, I found numerous examples of candidates running data-center-related ads:

• InMichigan’s 7th district, Will Lawrence used local opposition to data centers to help win atough Democratic primary. Lawrence is now facing off against Republican Tom Barrett and hasairedseveral data-center-related ads, both attacking Barrett and advertising Lawrence’s promise to “stand up to corporate power.”
• InPennsylvania’s 8th district, Republican incumbent Rob Bresnahan has run ads promising to be tough on the industry—despite holdingdata-center-related stocksand a previously friendly stance. His Democratic challenger, Paige Cognetti, has also runadsattacking the industry.
• InOhio’s 9th, Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur hasrun adsrailing against what she says is incumbent Derek Merrin’s history of giving tax breaks to data centers. (The ads call him “Data Center Derek.”) Merrinclaimsthat Kaptur is misrepresenting his vote on a broader bill.
• InWisconsin’s 3rd district, Democrat Rebecca Cooke has airedattackads against incumbent Derrick van Orden’s history of taking contributions from data center developers, dubbing him “DC Derrick.” (Sound familiar?) Van Orden has also shot back by highlighting Cooke’s ties to the tech industry,claimingshe is “responsible for covering up pristine Wisconsin farmland” with data centers.
• InNew York’s 17th district, incumbent Republican Mike Lawler hasaired an adslamming Democratic opponent Cait Conley’s past statements that the Hudson Valley “needs” data centers.

Governor

At least 20 candidates in the 36 gubernatorial races havepromisedto enact some kind of data center moratorium if elected, according toresearch from Multistate. The only true hyperscale moratorium in place in the US right now wassigned in JulybyNew Yorkgovernor Kathy Hochul, who holds a comfortable lead ahead of challengerBruce Blakeman(who supports data center development).

Candidates without much daylight between them have still tried to gain the upper hand on the issue. InWisconsin’stight gubernatorial race, Republican Tom Tiffany hasattackedDemocrat David Crowley with ads calling him “Data Center David.” Both candidates say they support restrictions on the industry.

In states that have been hotbeds for data center activity, some candidates in tight races have been forced to pivot on the issue. Nowhere is this clearer than inTexas, where incumbent governor Greg Abbott has gone from welcoming data center development to putting a de facto moratorium on permits in less than a year. His opponent, Gina Hinojosa, says Abbott hasn’t gone far enough to regulate the industry.

On the Ballot

Voters in eight states are looking at more than 30 local ballot measures around data centers. Once again,Ohiois a standout here: It’s responsible for more than half ofthose measures, from local moratoriums to referendums around rezoning.

What We’re Writing

WIRED science editor Brian Kahn and I gotexclusive access to a startupthat wants to pull water from the air using excess heat from data centers. While atmospheric water-harvesting technology has been around for a while, the startup has a unique spin. Atoco uses materials known as metal organic frameworks, or MOFs, which won one of its founders the Nobel Prize last year. The company’s previous prototypes have all needed to be hooked up to the grid to generate enough heat to extract water from the MOFs. The new version, though, only needs waste heat from industrial facilities—like data centers—to produce water, even in arid areas.

What We’re Reading

• In Memphis, Tennessee, home ofElon Musk’s SpaceX data centers, the city council postponed a vote on a data center moratorium. Business Insider hasmore on the “chaotic” meeting.
• Bloombergreportsthat Oracle used trucks to ship in natural gas to a data center outside Salt Lake City to keep it online for more than a year—and is considering a similar move in New Mexico, where pipeline delays have held up a big project.
• As the midterms approach, environmental groups are flooding the zone with ads about the rush to build AI infrastructure powered by fossil fuels—just as Congress prepares to debate permitting reform.Heatmap has more.

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is a senior writer for WIRED, covering climate change, energy, and the environment. Previously, they were a reporter and editor at Drilled, an investigative climate multimedia reporting project. Before that, they wrote about climate change and technology for Gizmodo, and served as a contributing editor for the New ...

Senior Writer, Climate

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