The AI Election: Voters Supported Data Center Restrictions or Moratoriums in 40 of 41 Local Elections

05 Nov 2026, 16:49 by Lucas Nolan · Breitbart

Tuesday’s midterm elections produced a clear loser along with the Republican party: the data center industry.

CNBC reports that data center-related measures appeared on ballots in at least 41 jurisdictions across 10 states, and voters approved moratoriums or restrictions in 40 of those. This is one of the clearest signs that the midterm elections were in fact the “AI election.”

In Ohio, at least 14 municipalities passed bans or restrictions on data center development, including the town of Sunbury, where Amazon has proposed a $2 million datacenter project. Maine saw eight municipalities pass temporary moratoriums. In Emporio, Kansas, voters approved a ban on high-impact data centers after a 1,000-acre, gigawatt-scale project was recently proposed for the area.

The lone exception came in Hardwood, North Dakota, a town with fewer than 1,000 residents, where voters rejected a bill that would have imposed restrictions on datacenter development.

The anti-data center wave reached governor’s races too. In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat Republican Greg Abbott, a historic result, after campaigning on moratoriums on datacenter construction, more community input, and tighter restrictions on the industry. Abbott himself had already backed away from his earlier welcome mat for datacenters in the closing stretch of his tenure, pushing to end their electricity subsidies.

Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected governor of Georgia on a pledge to impose moratoria on large datacenter construction. Amy Acton won the Ohio governorship on a similar promise. Florida got there first: Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill in May imposing strict regulations on large-scale datacenters.

Elon Musk, who spent more than $400 million supporting conservative candidates this midterm cycle, reacted to the results on X: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”

Wall Street analyst Dan Ives said the results will slow the pace of datacenter buildout, and warned that a divided Washington will complicate efforts to pass AI and tech legislation. “There is no way to sugarcoat that Democrats taking control especially over the Senate will create some major hurdles for AI and tech legislation in the Beltway over the next two years,” Ives said.

He singled out Hinojosa’s win in Texas as the one that matters most, calling her a “known anti-datacenter politician.” Texas accounts for an estimated 25% to 30% of the country’s datacenter gigawatts and capacity, which is why Ives called the state’s result the industry’s defining worry for the night. “The biggest worry of the night for tech investors and the AI trade was around the state of Texas where 25%-30% of data center gigawatts and capacity will come from,” he said.

AI presents both strong opportunities for American progress as well as landmines that can destroy political careers. Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has written his New York Times bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create positions on AI that benefit humanity without handing control of our nation to the leftists of Silicon Valley or allowing the Chinese to take over the world.