Voters Rejected Datacenters in More Than 30 Localities Across Nine States

Voters in more than 30 localities across nine states passed datacenter moratoriums or other restrictions in last week's midterms, delivering the AI industry its worst electoral night to date. An estimated 41% of planned US datacenter capacity now sits in states whose governors-elect back moratoriums, following Democratic wins in Texas, Ohio and Georgia. And 23% of voters told NBC exit pollsters that AI and datacenters were "crucial" to their decision — a bloc Democrats carried 67% to 30%.

That is the core argument of Garrison Lovely, freelance journalist and author of Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace Us – And How to Stop It. In a new opinion piece, Lovely contends the midterms mark the start of a durable political realignment. "AI will become the defining political fight of the 2028 cycle," he writes. "The future of US politics will belong to whoever voters believe will bring the industry to heel."

The stakes for the industry are considerable. AI infrastructure buildout depends on state and local permitting, federal legislation, and political goodwill — all now in play after years in which the major labs expanded with minimal restraint.

Why did the midterms go badly for the AI industry?

Lovely is careful to note the election was not primarily about AI. In 2024, Donald Trump ran on lowering prices and starting no new wars, then began a war that raised prices, Lovely writes. NBC exit polls ranked corruption, the cost of living, Iran and immigration as more important to voters' choices.

But AI salience has grown faster than any other issue, Lovely argues. He cites a summer of "rogue AI hacking incidents," prominent warnings from AI developers themselves, and local organizing that drove an explosion of opposition to datacenters. AI extinction fears, he writes, have gone mainstream.

The industry's own leadership supplied the material for attack ads, in Lovely's telling. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote that "AI isn't a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman "infamously said, 'AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there will be great companies.'" A Microsoft executive described the industry's training practices as "the largest theft of labor in human history."

What does the data on AI salience show?

The numbers Lovely assembles point to an open field:

• 23% of voters called AI and datacenters "crucial" to their vote; Democrats won that group 67% to 30%.
• When NBC asked which party would be better on AI, 30% of voters named Democrats, 27% named Republicans, and 43% said neither.
• More than 130 federal and gubernatorial races mentioned tech accountability or AI — against only two Democratic-aligned ads mentioning big tech between 2020 and 2024.

The 43% who trust neither party on AI, Lovely argues, makes the issue "anyone's game." He also warns that all backlash so far emerged during a period of 4% unemployment. "As signs of widespread labor automation grow, we'll find that we're nowhere close to the ceiling of anti-AI sentiment," he writes.

How did Republican ties to Silicon Valley become a liability?

Trump, following advice from billionaire venture capitalists like David Sacks and Marc Andreessen, took a "let it rip" approach to AI, Lovely writes. Tech executives received prime seating in the Capitol rotunda at Trump's inauguration, and no industry donated more to his ballroom.

This summer Trump posted on social media: "The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor."

Almost every House Republican, Lovely notes, voted for a provision in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act to override state AI regulations with no federal replacement — an unprecedented move. Senate Republicans stripped the measure.

Money did not save the industry's allies. The main AI industry Super PAC spent heavily in one competitive race and lost: Democrat Annie Andrews won in South Carolina on a platform of "protecting kids, not big tech." Elon Musk's record-breaking spending of nearly half a billion dollars flopped — Republicans lost all five Senate races where he spent the most.

"Whoever can most convincingly run against Altman, Amodei, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg will gain far more politically than they'll lose in foregone Super PAC contributions," Lovely writes.

Who are the emerging AI-accountability champions?

Democratic leadership and key incoming committee chairs have signaled AI will be a top priority, Lovely reports. The party's left flank is going further.

Texas Democrat Greg Casar, a former labor organizer and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, declared: "AI will be the number one issue in 2028." Casar has co-sponsored a bill with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders that would pause AI development until a federal cabinet-level agency exists and ban artificial super-intelligence outright.

Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, in a 60 Minutes interview, called for a "full-on pause" on frontier AI development and said AI is his number one issue. Maine Senator-elect Troy Jackson said in his victory speech: "We are not that far from Terminator, and I don't want to be 'hasta la vista, baby.'"

Cross-party openings exist. Republican senators with competitive races or White House ambitions will want to differentiate themselves, Lovely argues, creating paths for Democrats to reach the 60-vote filibuster threshold. Missouri's Josh Hawley has been a leader in drafting robust AI-regulation bills. Trump has signaled surprising openness to working with Democrats, though he retains veto power.

What legislation does Lovely propose?

Lovely urges Democrats to pass popular pro-worker legislation and dare Trump to veto it. His list:

• Ban surveillance pricing and "bossware."
• Make it easier for workers to unionize and organize across sectors.
• Create strict liability for AI developers.
• Strengthen workers' ability to make wage theft claims if their work trains AI models that lead to layoffs or reduced hours.
• Impose criminal liability when AI agents do what would be criminal if a human did it — which, he writes, OpenAI's and Anthropic's agents have done.

The goal, he writes, is to shift corporate incentives from labor replacement to worker augmentation.

What role will congressional hearings play?

Democrats will hold subpoena power in the new Congress. Senator Ed Markey reminded big tech executives of what that means: "They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we'll be printing."

Lovely argues hearings can serve two functions. First, they can compel non-public information under oath. This summer, Casar asked AI companies difficult questions about the criminal hacking incidents they were responsible for, and got what Lovely calls "incomplete and misleading answers."

Second, hearings can publicize what is technically public but not widely known — including, Lovely writes, the industry's plan to fully replace its own researchers with AI systems that can train smarter generations, aiming for a capabilities explosion producing systems superhuman at basically everything. The industry also plans to fully automate AI safety research. People leading this work will admit it is a terrible plan, Lovely writes; they just cannot think of a better one.

"Democrats should drag Altman, Amodei and Musk before the world and make them explain just what it is they're trying to do and why they're doing it without our consent," Lovely writes.

Trump will not be on the ticket in 2028, Lovely notes. The AI industry is not term-limited — and with a GOP-led detente with Silicon Valley now an electoral cost, the 2028 field will compete over who can credibly claim to bring the industry to heel.

By Rebecca Stone