GOP warns AI companies that data centers are politically radioactive

The Republican Party spent years positioning itself as the pro-business, pro-tech-infrastructure party. Now some of its own voters are making that position untenable. A Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans oppose AI data center construction in their local area. The more surprising number: 39% of Republicans strongly oppose it. That’s not a fringe. That’s a base problem. The NIMBY coalition nobody saw coming In Texas, rural Republican voters have grown frustrated with Gov. Greg Abbott’s support for Google’s $40 billion data center investment. The math is straightforward: massive facilities draw massive power, and when the grid is already strained, someone else’s electricity bill goes up. In a state that experienced deadly grid failures during Winter Storm Uri, telling voters their power costs more because an AI model needs to train on their grid is a tough sell. The backlash isn’t confined to one state. Across Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, and South Carolina, local opposition has coalesced into a political force that candidates are now actively courting rather than ignoring. Some $64 billion worth of data center projects have already faced challenges or delays due to community...