Data Center Revolt Upends Midterm Races Nationwide

Wisconsin's Republican-controlled legislature inserted sales- and use-tax exemptions for data centers into the biennial budget, and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed them into law. Unlike carve-outs in many other states, they carry no sunset date and cover electricity costs. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates the breaks will cost the state more than $2 billion in lost revenue.

55% of Wisconsin voters told Marquette pollsters the costs of data centers outweighed the benefits.

Rock County, Wisconsin supervisor Philip Gorman learned from a local news report that a company linked to Meta planned a hyperscale data center, named Cornmaze, on more than 400 acres of an aging quarry in his district. He then discovered town officials and the county administrator had signed nondisclosure agreements with the developer a year earlier. "I'm not sure if I even should have told you I signed the N.D.A.," the administrator told him, according to Gorman's account to The New Yorker.

Gorman won reelection handily. "I won very conservative parts of the town of Beloit that I had previously lost, purely on the data-center issue," he said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine paused consideration of new data center tax breaks. Sales tax exemptions committed under former Gov. John Kasich — at least $2.3 billion promised to companies including Amazon, Meta and Google, with 100% breaks running up to 40 years — cost Ohio more than $1.5 billion in 2025, nearly 12 times the state's $136 million forecast.

A proposed Ohio constitutional amendment to ban all large-scale data centers, pushed by the grassroots group Conserve Ohio, failed to qualify for this year's ballot.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul made her state the first to enact a one-year moratorium on new data centers.

Opponents staged 142 protests across 42 states, citing water use, noise, electricity demand, outages, pollution and property values.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley won Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary by fewer than 4,000 votes over Madison assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist whose signature proposal was a one-year data center moratorium. Asked afterward what the biggest difference between them was, Crowley answered: "data centers." He supports "guardrails" but opposes a moratorium.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order restricting data center construction, claiming he had enacted "the strictest requirements IN THE NATION." He said the industry had been "running roughshod over our communities to make a buck" and vowed, "We will not be bulldozed by the lawyers for these big tech companies." Critics noted Shapiro, who faces reelection in November, had previously championed data centers and put projects in a fast-track approval program.

Axios published a private National Republican Senatorial Committee memo warning that data centers had become an "anchor hanging around" Ohio Sen. Jon Husted's neck. Husted, who as lieutenant governor helped usher in Ohio's data center boom, faces Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Marquette's new poll put Wisconsin opposition at 78%.