The real reason voters hate data centers so much

A protest against data centers in central Texas. | Sara Diggins/The Austin American-Statesman Welcome to The Midterms, Actually.

Every week I’ll be writing about two things: one big idea or trend I see forming across the 2026 primaries, and one thing I’m hearing from a voice on the ground.

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Let’s get into it.

One big idea: The data center backlash is a democracy story This week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged a small hurdle in his quest to integrate artificial intelligence into all parts of human life and the economy: the rest of us.

In an episode of the Founders podcast with David Senra, Altman confronted the growing public backlash against tech leaders and their AI tools, conceding that he’d overrated the speed at which they’d be adopted across the economy and that the industry hasn’t made its case to the public.

“We have not, as a field, done a very good job of explaining to people what the benefits are and how the downsides can be mitigated,” Altman said.

He added that “it’s probably a good feature of human society that we have some built-in inertia, some skepticism of rapid change.” You think? Survey after survey shows how deep — and how bipartisan — the backlash against AI, and specifically data centers, already runs.

The pressure has been building all year: A Gallup poll in March) found that 71 percent of Americans said they oppose building AI data centers in their area — 48 percent of them strongly .

That opposition runs across the aisle: 75 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents, and 63 percent of Republicans.

For perspective, Americans are more opposed to a data center going up near them than a nuclear power plant (53 percent).

This is not some fringe opposition.

It is a consensus.

The shift is already scrambling candidates’ positions ahead of the midterms, where data centers, artificial intelligence, and the future of work will be front and center.