Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump is in bed with nearly all the CEOs of the big tech companies that want to push AI for all it is worth. That means building lots and lots of big data centers to handle the computing load. The trouble is that the vast majority of Americans do not want this because they oppose AI to start with (jobs, privacy) and also oppose data centers for any purpose (noise, property values, water and electricity usage). They have made this clear to their local, state, and federal representatives, who have generally gotten the message. Some states are even working on legislation to ban the construction of new data centers. Oklahoma state Sen. Kendal Sacchieri (R) has filed a bill to put a 3-year pause on building new data centers in Oklahoma. She has gotten a tremendous amount of support from within and without her district and expects that other senators have, too. This development is going to put some Republicans up in 2026 at odds with Trump. Oppose him and incur his wrath, support him and incur the voters' wrath. What's a Republican politician to do?
No state has enacted a statewide moratorium on construction yet, but Republicans have proposed bans in Georgia, Maryland, New York, Vermont, and Virginia so far, with more in the works. Some Republican governors, including Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), have voiced support for restricting data centers in their states. This means that DeSantis and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are on the same page here. That doesn't happen a lot. Enjoy it while you can.
Needless to say, with Trump backing the billionaires and in favor of more data centers, this gives the Democrats an opening to attack him. It has to be done carefully, focusing on harms that people understand, like: "The Republicans support AI so your company can replace you with an AI bot and raise your utility bill in the process."
One approach some Republicans are taking is to support bills that merely require data centers to pay for their own power. The accounting here is complicated. They can pay for the megawatts they consume, but delivering those megawatts may require massive (and expensive) upgrades to generation and transmission facilities whose cost cannot be easily calculated and allocated to each watt produced. If people's bills go up, they are going to blame AI, no matter how many accountants the Republicans charter to explain how the rising bills are not really the fault of AI. (V)