US voters approve local bans and moratoriums on data centers

US voters approve local bans and moratoriums on data centers

by

Voters in 10 states decided 41 local ballot measures affecting data center policy on Tuesday, and the results delivered a rebuke to the industry: nearly every moratorium and ban was approved across at least 40 jurisdictions, while only one community voted to ease restrictions. The facilities — full of semiconductor chips powering artificial intelligence and other online products — were on the ballot in at least 40 jurisdictions across 10 states, emerging as one of three big losers alongside Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

The sweep spanned the country. At least 14 municipalities in Ohio passed bans or restrictions, including in Sunbury, where Amazon has proposed a $2 million datacenter project, eight towns in Maine approved temporary moratoriums, and Emporio, Kansas, backed a ban on high-impact facilities after a 1,000-acre gigawatt-scale project was proposed. The lone exception came in Hardwood, North Dakota, a city of fewer than 1,000 residents, where voters defeated a bill imposing limits on development. Dozens of moratoriums were approved in total. Ohio and Pennsylvania each account for 5% of the nation’s datacenter gigawatts, according to Wells Fargo estimates.

New governors pledged to halt construction

Where data centers were not directly on the ballot, voters elected officials who campaigned against them. Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia and Amy Acton in Ohio, both newly elected governors, pledged similar moratoria on large facilities. The opposition has crossed party lines: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed strict regulations on large-scale facilities in May, and anti-datacenter sentiment has become a bipartisan issue that solidified the overwhelming opposition to these centers of compute.

Investors brace for a slowdown

AI data center stocks came under pressure as Democrats won big. Analyst Dan Ives said the results show the pace of data center buildout will start to slow, warning that Democrats taking control creates “major hurdles for AI and tech legislation in the Beltway over the next two years.” Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX are based in Texas, and SpaceX is currently building out multiple gigawatts of data center capacity there. The Washington policy team at Optimal Advisory wrote that “data centers went from being a popular economic development tool in 2024 and 2025 to something of a pariah,” adding that “the midterms are likely to send a message to local and state officials that there is a political upside to blocking, delaying and/or raising the cost of data centers.”

More on Donald Trump

AI Data Center Slowdown: Voters Deliver Ballot-Box Losses Across Dozens of States
Voters Rejected Data Centers. Now What?
Democrats flip 3 governorships as voters revolt over data centers and bills
Data Centers Were on the Ballot in 45 Places. Voters Said No. Now What?

More on this

Read next