76 Percent of Mainers Oppose Data Centers — and It May Decide the Senate

Seventy-six percent of Mainers oppose building a data center in their community, according to a September poll by UMass Lowell and YouGov — and that number has turned AI infrastructure into one of the most volatile issues in the most expensive per-capita Senate race in US history. Democrats are projected to spend $81 million and Republicans $114 million on the contest between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson, with much of the money traceable to the very industry rural voters have been fighting for more than a year.

The rupture broke into public view at the final debate of the midterms. Collins was midway through defending her record when an audience member cut her short. "I'm terrified," the man shouted. "AI data centers are destroying our climate. They are poisoning our water." Collins tied the man to her challenger and moved on. The fear in the auditorium did not move on with her.

Why does Maine matter to the AI industry?

Maine offers what crowded metropolitan markets no longer can: cheap land, vacant industrial mills, and abundant water from the state's rivers and waterways. As cities run short on land and power, rural states like Maine have become prime targets for data center construction. Major tech companies and private equity firms tied to data centers and AI have invested millions in the midterms to win over skeptical locals.

The state Legislature passed what would have been the nation's first statewide moratorium on large data centers in April. Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the bill ten days later. The fight continued at the municipal level, with towns across Maine adopting temporary bans this summer or putting the data center question directly to voters this November.

The stakes extend beyond Maine. The outcome of the Senate race will help determine which party controls the chamber and shape federal data center and AI policy, affecting construction decisions nationwide.

What is driving the local backlash?

Molly White, the researcher and software engineer behind Tech Influence Watch, says voters connect data centers to rising utility costs — a connection that stings during a fall of record-high heating oil prices. "They're now looking at an election where the question is, is this candidate going to invite a data center to move in next door, and then my electricity prices go up, or the knock-on effects are going to hurt me even more when I'm already in very dire straits?" she said.

White launched her site in 2024 to track crypto spending in political races and has since expanded it to monitor AI and Big Tech investments. She says the AI industry's midterm playbook closely mirrors the one cryptocurrency used in 2024. "There's a lot of questions about the economy, the war, all these different things, but AI is the new one," White said of voter questioning at campaign events.

The jobs pitch is where the industry's argument is weakest. Developers and their political allies routinely sell rural communities on long-term job creation, a promise economists say rarely materializes. Economic research indicates most data centers create virtually no net employment once construction is complete.

That record collides with Maine's economic history. The timber industry contributed roughly $8.3 billion to the state's economy in 2024, but Donald Trump's tariffs and rising operating costs have hit it hard, producing mill closures and layoffs. Maine's traditional industries — lumber, shipbuilding, commercial fishing, textiles, pulp and paper — once employed entire towns.

Mark Brewer, who chairs the political science department at the University of Maine, says that history cuts both ways. "Maine has a long history of extractive industries providing jobs," Brewer said, which allowed residents to tolerate them despite the state's environmental focus. With data centers, he notes, "the jobs part of it's not there. It's one thing to put up with a paper mill that's employing three shifts of 1,000 workers, right? Data centers aren't doing that."

Nicholas Jacobs, director of the Public Policy Lab at Colby College, adds that residents worry about opaque data center ownership, limited long-term employment, and the risk of wealth being extracted from rural communities.

Who is funding Collins' campaign?

Tech and AI interests see an ally in Collins, the 73-year-old Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. She has largely supported data centers and AI, while saying facilities should be evaluated individually. She used her Appropriations position to secure $6.2 million in federal funding for a high-performance computing hub data center in central Maine, designed to support localized AI and biotech research.

Her donor list reflects that stance:

• Alex Karp, cofounder and CEO of Palantir; Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz; and donors from Google, Meta, and Microsoft
• $325,644 from AI and crypto donors, per White's donation tracker
• Nearly 100 billionaires contributing in some form
• $42 million in Maine ads from the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC, which received $158 million from Elon Musk this summer
• Roughly $2.1 million in Maine spending by Musk's America PAC
• $29.1 million from Pine Tree Results PAC, which has personal ties to Collins and her husband, including $2 million from Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman
• $55,000 from Musk's corporate SpaceX PAC to Collins' Victory Committee in August, plus $50,000 to Pine Tree Results, per an FEC report flagged by the Maine Newsroom

Musk has spent around $450 million of his own money supporting Republicans in the midterms overall.

The money flows in one direction. Jackson's FEC filings show no obvious data center, AI, or Big Tech ties, though they list at least four billionaire donors. His substantive position differs less than the funding does: Jackson also accepts data center development in principle, focusing on guardrails and on ensuring union jobs for construction and maintenance in the state.

What about Collins' personal finances?

The senator's ties to the AI boom are not limited to donors. Forbes ranked Collins' household fifth in the Senate this month for AI- and data center-linked investments, an estimated $300,000 to $800,000 held in the name of her husband, Thomas Daffron. Daffron, a former lobbyist, was paid consulting fees in 2025 by the firm of Scott Reed — who chairs Pine Tree Results, the super PAC supporting Collins. According to American Journal News and The New York Times, Reed's firm lobbied for a developer that has built data centers in Maine. Collins' financial disclosure lists household assets of $4 million to $10 million. Jackson, a former logger and state senator, holds $147,000 to $430,000 in assets with his wife and reports no financial ties to data centers, AI, or Big Tech.

Can the spending backfire?

As of mid-October, $54 million had been spent or committed to negative attack ads, according to the Maine Monitor — nearly all of it from outside PACs financed by Big Tech and data center supporters rather than the candidates' own campaigns. Broadcast television inventory sold out entirely, pushing money into radio, social media, and direct mail. Brewer calls it "the most negative race" he has tracked in 25 years of observing Maine politics.

No ads have targeted Collins' data center positions directly, though some have attacked her family's ties to Big Tech through her husband. The National Republican Senatorial Committee attempted in September to tie Jackson to Senate Democrats' opposition to the Husted legislation.

Jacobs warns the damage goes beyond any single candidate. "It's ads, and then paying consultants to write the ads, polling, paying the consultants to do the polls, right?" he said. "The worst case is that it tarnishes the image of democracy in voters' minds, and I think that is the most significant consequence beyond any quid pro quo relationship."

Mainers, Jacobs notes, carry a long-standing suspicion of anyone from "away" seeking to exploit local resources. "Rural wealth exists, but it is extracted out of the community, and that's the game of rural living," he said. "It's extractive, but there's a fine line between an extractive economy and an exploitive economy."

Many voters, especially independents, remain conflicted — wary of outsiders changing their communities yet worried their children cannot afford to stay without new jobs. "Data centers just seem to be this symbolic flashpoint of that tension in rural living," Jacobs said. Whether that tension translates into votes against Collins — or against the industry bankrolling her — will shape federal AI policy regardless of who wins.