At a glance
- NBC exit polling found 76% of voters opposed construction of new data centers in their communities, and 56% said data centers were a crucial or major factor in their choice of congressional candidates.
- Thirteen states attempted data center moratoriums in 2026, as Private Wealth Daily previously reported.
- For investors funding data centers, the votes add a diligence item: a zoning pause can arrive between land control and energized capacity.
Voters in dozens of localities across 10 states approved measures to prohibit or place moratoriums on data center development on Tuesday, Construction Dive reported. NBC exit polling found 76% of voters opposed construction of new data centers in their communities, and 56% said data centers were a crucial or major factor in their choice of congressional candidates.
Thirteen states attempted data center moratoriums in 2026, as Private Wealth Daily previously reported. Senators-elect Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Abdul El-Sayed, D-Mich., made opposition to data centers a centerpiece of their campaigns, according to Construction Dive. Gubernatorial candidates who pledged moratoriums were elected in major data center markets including Georgia, Ohio and Texas.
For investors funding data centers, the votes add a diligence item: a zoning pause can arrive between land control and energized capacity. Municipalities negotiate conditions such as transmission and distribution costs and road work one locality at a time, and those pauses lengthen the period when capital sits unproductive, raising the cost of waiting out local approval more than the cost of construction.
“The main message here is not that people are rejecting AI,” said Subodha Kumar, a business and management professor at Temple University. “The main message is that people are rejecting the cost that they need to pay for these data centers.” Kumar said cities should make developers cover land, electricity and water costs, and should make clear that companies, not taxpayers, pay.
Andy Roehr, a managing director in Baker Tilly's energy and infrastructure practice, said municipalities will be better prepared and can get more expansive about social impacts, moving past a single line item for transmission and distribution cost. He offered an example: telling a developer it will need to widen and strengthen the bridge from its facility to the highway, because cement mixers will run on it for five years and it was not built for that load.
The opposition could spur new state-level regulations as well as push local officials to demand more from developers on infrastructure, utilities and community impacts, Construction Dive reported. For a project already holding land and power contracts, the open question is which localities turn referendum language into ordinance text, and how soon.
The main message is that people are rejecting the cost that they need to pay for these data centers.Subodha Kumar, business and management professor at Temple University
Reported by the Data centers & fiber desk from Construction Dive. Published . Corrections