Data centers become a target of $86.5M in midterm campaign ads

Candidates and outside groups spent $86.5 million on political ads mentioning data centers between July and last week, almost always in a negative context, according to AdImpact data shared with Bisnow.

By the start of this month, television viewers in 38 states were seeing political ads focused at least in part on data centers, in races running from governor and Senate contests down to congressional, state legislative and local offices. Candidates from both parties are attacking opponents by framing them as supporters of the data center industry, and the outcome of that messaging could shape who controls Congress and statehouses after November's midterms, according to Bisnow.

Before this summer, data centers rarely appeared in political advertising anywhere in the U.S., according to AdImpact. At the end of August, the issue ranked No. 43 among 73 topics appearing in campaign ads nationwide. By the start of this month it was No. 17. AdImpact ranked the related issues of energy and artificial intelligence separately, at No. 5 with $226 million in ads and No. 20 with $74 million, and listed its top four topics as Donald Trump, character, crime and healthcare.

Adam Waitkunas, president and co-founder of data center public relations firm Milldam Public Relations, told Bisnow that candidates are responding to residents in host communities who organize against projects, and that polling supports the approach. "They're seeing all these folks in local communities rise up and make a lot of noise about it," he said. "Politicians have identified this issue and are exploiting it to their benefit."

Industry leaders worry the prominence could translate into a more difficult regulatory environment after the midterms, particularly as anti-data center rhetoric gains traction with voters beyond the communities most impacted by large-scale digital infrastructure development, Bisnow reported. The concern lands as the sector pursues what the coverage describes as an unprecedented wave of development, with the political salience of the issue now extending past Election Day itself.

The move from No. 43 to No. 17 among tracked topics in roughly a month is the clearest measure in the AdImpact data of how quickly the sector entered the national political conversation. It does not, on its own, indicate how much of that advertising translates into state or local permitting outcomes, which the coverage does not quantify.

AdImpact's rankings and dollar figures describe television and political advertising tracked by the firm. The coverage does not break the $86.5 million out by party, race or state, nor does it say what share of the spots were paid for by candidates rather than outside groups.