The strange politics of the AI backlash

Protesters gather for a statewide data center day of action at the Wisconsin State Capitol on February 12, 2026, in Madison, Wisconsin. | Wisconsin Watch via Getty Images The general election for Wisconsin governor is now a week old.

But the past seven days of debate between the race’s Republican and Democratic candidates can be paraphrased in just two lines: “My opponent is a shill for Big Tech who wants to build data centers over Wisconinites’ farms, parks, preserves, graves — and, possibly, Lambeau Field.” “I know you are, but what am I?” The Republican nominee, Congressman Tom Tiffany, has been the aggressor in this argument.

Tiffany has branded his Democratic rival David Crowley as “ Data Center David ,” spotlighting the Milwaukee County Executive’s past support for turning Wisconsin into a “data hub” for “the entire globe.” In the Republican’s telling, Crowley is a corporate stooge eager to let Wisconsin’s “lakes run dry” and its “family farms” get “paved over,” just to generate higher profits for his Silicon Valley paymasters.

Key takeaways • Republican Tom Tiffany has made data centers the focus of Wisconsin’s governor’s race. • But his policies on hyper scale development aren’t much different than David Crowley’s. • Some Wisconsin labor unions and municipalities benefit a lot from data center projects. • Crowley and Tiffany have held off on embracing a moratorium for that reason.

Crowley has returned fire .

The Democrat has insisted that every Wisconsin community should have veto power over any data center project within its territory — and that new computing campuses anywhere in the state must comply with strict regulations .

Meanwhile, Crowley has argued that Tiffany is the race’s true corporate shill , noting that the member of Congress voted for tax cuts that benefit Big Tech (paid for with cuts to Medicaid and food stamps), permitting reforms that made data centers easier to build, and a ban on state and local AI regulations.

“Congressman Tiffany loves data centers,” Crowley warned in a recent statement.

Meanwhile, it’s not clear how much they actually disagree on what they would do about the issue as governor.

The Wisconsin governor’s race has quickly become the most prominent flashpoint in the national war over data centers.

And it’s not hard to tell which side is winning.

On Tuesday, Josh Shapiro, the moderate Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, announced a suite of measures to slow and block “predatory” data center developments , after having previously led efforts to attract them.

If the public’s views on data centers are increasingly clear, the substantive issues remain unsettled.