Data centers become rare bipartisan target in 2026 midterm ad wars

Data centers have emerged as one of the few genuinely bipartisan flashpoints of the 2026 midterm campaign, with Democratic and Republican candidates alike pouring tens of millions of dollars into television ads attacking the sprawling AI server farms as a driver of higher electricity bills, according to an NPR analysis of advertising data published Friday. The trend cuts across the House, Senate and governor's races that will decide control of Washington and dozens of statehouses in November, and it has put both parties in the unusual position of running nearly identical attack lines against the same industry.

What happened

Since January, campaigns and outside groups have spent more than $45 million on television ads that mention data centers, according to the NPR analysis of AdImpact political-advertising data covering gubernatorial, House and Senate races. Spending has been almost evenly split by party — over $22 million backing Republican candidates and more than $21 million backing Democrats — even though Democratic campaigns have run nearly twice as many distinct ads, 127 to 67. Mentions of data centers in campaign ads climbed from a handful in January to 62 in June, more than 110 in July and roughly 164 in August, tracking the approach of the November election. The Brookings Institution has separately documented a sharp swing in public sentiment, from a roughly even split on data center construction in September 2025 to 64 percent of Americans now calling rapid buildout "not a good thing."

The two parties are, for the most part, making the same case to voters: that data centers receive outsized tax breaks, strain local power grids and push up household electricity costs. In Wisconsin, the Democratic-aligned Believe in Wisconsin PAC has spent more than $634,000 on ads promising that gubernatorial nominee David Crowley would "stop AI data centers from making your energy bills skyrocket." In Florida, the Republican-aligned Friends of Byron Donalds PAC has spent upward of $2.5 million on ads pledging that Donalds would "protect Florida families and communities from data centers that jack up utility rates." In Ohio's Senate race, Democratic ads backing Sherrod Brown have branded incumbent Republican Jon Husted "the face of data centers," citing more than $2.5 billion in tax breaks the state extended to data-center operators while Husted served as lieutenant governor and governor.

• More than $45 million in ad spending mentioning data centers since January, roughly evenly split between the two parties.
• 164 ads referencing data centers ran in August alone, up from a handful in January, per AdImpact data cited by NPR.
• 77 percent of Americans said in a June Reuters/Ipsos poll that they worry data centers will raise their electricity rates, and two-thirds of Democrats and half of Republicans said they would oppose one being built in their community.
• Georgia alone has drawn roughly 30 percent of total national spending on data-center-related ads, including $12.8 million across nine ads in the governor's race.

How it got here

The backlash follows a rapid buildout of AI infrastructure that utilities and grid operators have struggled to absorb, pushing up wholesale power costs in several regions and feeding a broader affordability argument that both parties have seized on ahead of a midterm election widely expected to turn on cost-of-living concerns. The Trump administration has tried to defuse the issue from the White House rather than let it become a liability for Republican candidates. In March, seven major technology companies — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI — signed the administration's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, committing to cover the cost of new power generation and grid upgrades needed for their data centers rather than passing those costs on to households. The administration later said it had expanded the pledge to more than 300 utilities, state governments and developers.

In Congress, Husted has tried to convert the same defensive posture into legislation, introducing the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would push states and utility regulators to require data centers and other large electricity users to pay the full cost of the power and infrastructure their facilities demand rather than spreading those costs across residential ratepayers. Husted's office announced the bill in July, noting that a companion measure had cleared a House committee by a unanimous vote, though the Senate version has yet to attract a cosponsor. Husted has rejected the suggestion that the bill amounts to a political reversal. "It's not really a shift," he has said. "I was always trying to hold these companies accountable."

Who is affected, and the reaction

The politics cut across ideological lines in ways that have unsettled both parties' usual coalitions. Michael Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising, said data centers give Democrats a vehicle for environmental and affordability arguments while giving Republicans an outlet for opposition to large corporations. Darrell West of the Brookings Institution said governors in particular are "under pressure to slow construction" of data centers because, unlike Congress, they control local permitting and utility regulation directly, and he said President Trump has so far appeared "oblivious to public opinion" in continuing to champion AI infrastructure expansion nationally even as state-level Republicans distance themselves from it.

"MAGA Republicans and liberal Democrats" have landed in the same place on data centers, Michael Franz of the Wesleyan Media Project said, describing the industry as a rare target that lets each party speak to its own base in its own language — Democrats on environmental and affordability grounds, Republicans in "opposition to a system that doesn't care about you."

Residents near proposed or existing data-center sites are the most direct stakeholders, citing noise, water use and rising local utility bills, but the ripple effects extend to the technology industry itself, which depends on continued rapid buildout of AI computing capacity and has lobbied against state-level restrictions. A Republican operative granted anonymity to discuss internal party strategy said GOP leadership had circulated a memo describing data centers as a "sleeper issue for the entire election cycle," while still favoring their construction "as long as they pay for their own energy." The Democratic Governors Association's Olivia Davis said the issue reflects "deep concerns around affordability and utility costs" that Democratic candidates intend to keep pressing through November.

What happens next

Husted's Ratepayer Protection Act remains stalled in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, without a Republican or Democratic cosponsor as of early September, even as its House companion has advanced. Whether it moves before the midterms may hinge on how much political cover Republican leaders think it offers vulnerable incumbents like Husted himself, who faces Brown in one of the cycle's most competitive Senate races. In the states, analysts expect a wave of local moratoriums, siting restrictions and ratepayer-protection measures regardless of which party controls a given legislature after November, since both parties' candidates have now publicly committed to reining in the industry's costs to consumers. CNN's own analysis of the trend found campaigns in both parties treating the issue as a rare point of genuine consensus with voters, even as Washington and the technology industry continue to promote data-center expansion as a matter of AI competitiveness with China. With early voting set to begin in several states within weeks, the volume of data-center advertising is expected to keep climbing through Election Day.