Data Centre Fights Follow 18 Incumbents To Election Defeats
A Data Center Knowledge review found at least 18 incumbent officeholders lost elections after documented action or association with data centre projects, as electricity, water, zoning and incentive disputes move from hearings into campaigns.
Data Centre development has become an election risk for local and state officials, with at least 18 incumbent officeholders losing races after documented action on a project or association with a data centre fight, Data Center Knowledge found in a review of election results, government records, campaign material and local reporting.
The review covers completed elections between August 2025 and August 2026.
Officials entered the count only when a completed defeat followed recorded approvals, incentives, zoning steps or public support tied to a data centre project or policy dispute.
The count does not treat timing alone as proof that data centre politics caused a defeat.
Utah supplied the clearest cluster.
State Senate President J. Stuart Adams lost a Republican primary as opponents tied him to Stratos, a proposed data centre in Box Elder County, while county commissioners Lee Perry and Boyd Bingham also lost primaries after voting to advance the project.
Opposition centred on potential water and environmental impacts, and the commissioners' vote gave the state's Military Installation Development Authority power to form the Stratos project area and override county zoning and land-use rules.
The Missouri cases showed a wider approval-process problem.
Four incumbent Festus city council members lost after a dispute over a proposed $6 billion data centre project, even though one of them voted against the development agreement.
In Independence, council members Jared Fears and Bridget McCandless lost amid a fight over a proposed data centre and related tax incentives.
Campaigns in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Oregon and Georgia put different versions of the same infrastructure dispute in front of voters.
Challengers used data centres as shorthand for complaints about power costs, taxes, land use and local control, while some races also involved labour, education or utility-rate issues that made the data centre connection less direct.
The political cost is now changing the industry side of the approval process.
Mike Casey, president of energy technology public-relations firm Tigercomm, told Data Center Knowledge that many technology companies were not built to campaign for permission to build project by project.
Dan Diorio, executive vice president of state policy and government affairs at the Data Centre Coalition, pointed to community engagement and stakeholder education while citing a PwC report that estimated the industry supported 5.5 million jobs, contributed $927 billion to US GDP and generated $204 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2024.
Policy conditions are tightening as governors respond to complaints over power costs, permitting, incentives and local opposition.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pushed for a slower approval path and protection for other customers from project-related costs; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has put environmental and transparency conditions on development; and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has paused new data centre tax-exemption requests.
The development fight is therefore moving beyond the public hearing.
Developers still bring investment, jobs and tax revenue, but election campaigns are now asking who pays for electricity, who absorbs water and land effects, whether incentives are justified and how much control residents keep before projects are approved.
