Data centers are no longer just a planning issue for utility boards, county commissions and developers. In several states, they have become a visible political fault line, with residents organizing around the costs they believe these projects could impose on their communities.
The clearest signal came in Georgia, where Peter Hubbard won a seat on the Georgia Public Service Commission, the body that regulates the state’s electric utility. His campaign was shaped first by affordability concerns, but he said data centers came up repeatedly with voters who worried about water, electricity, land and taxes.
Why data centers moved into the political spotlight
Georgia has become a hot spot for data center development over the past few years. The source says some research identifies it as one of the fastest-growing markets for data center development in the country, helped in part by generous tax breaks.
That growth has produced a backlash. Hubbard said residents were focused on affordability, but data centers were close behind. His summary of voter concerns was direct: “The number one issue was affordability,” he says. “But a very close second was data centers and the concern around them just sucking up the water, the electricity, the land—and not really paying any taxes.”
The pattern is not limited to Georgia. A new report from Data Center Watch, a project run by AI security company 10a Labs, says community opposition to data centers is rising across the country. The report points to red states, including Georgia and Indiana, as leaders in a broader wave of bipartisan resistance.
The numbers behind the pushback
Data Center Watch has tracked community opposition since 2023 and released its first public findings earlier this year. Its earlier report covered May 2024 to March of 2025 and found that local opposition had blocked or delayed $64 billion in data center projects. In that period, six projects were blocked entirely and 10 were delayed.
The new report describes a much faster escalation. From March to June of 2025 alone, opposition blocked or delayed $98 billion in projects. In those three months, eight projects were blocked, including two in Indiana and Kentucky, while nine were delayed.
One of the delayed projects was a $17 billion development in the Atlanta suburbs. It was put on hold in May after the county imposed a 180-day moratorium on data center development following significant local pushback.
The report does come with limits. Miquel Vila, the report author, acknowledges “methodological caveats.” The findings are based only on public documents, including media reports, legal filings and social media. The source also notes that the period covered by the new report coincided with rapid growth in US data center construction, which means more projects could naturally create more local disputes.
Even with those limits, Vila argues that the trend has changed. Data Center Watch observed nearly 50,000 signatures on petitions opposing specific data centers across the country between March and June. Vila described the change as “a turning point.”
“Before, [resistance] was something that could happen,” he says. “Now it seems that it’s very likely that when you are developing [a data center], potentially someone is going to organize.”
Virginia shows how local fights can shape elections
Virginia, described in the source as the country’s data center hub, is another center of the debate. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger said she wanted data centers to “pay their own way” for power. Heatmap also profiled John McAuliff, a former Biden climate adviser who won his election based in large part on opposition to data centers.
Josh Thomas, a Virginia state delegate from Prince William County, also made data center issues part of his political work. The county claims it has the highest concentration of data centers in the world. Thomas introduced multiple bills during the last legislative session to rein in data centers in Virginia, and the issue figured prominently in his most recent election.
Thomas points to the proposed Prince William Digital Gateway as an example of how organized local resistance can affect a major project. The project would put more than 30 data centers on the edge of a national reserve in the north of the state. A group of homeowners challenged the project in court, and a judge voided zoning in August, temporarily halting construction.
For Thomas, the case had political meaning beyond one development. “The little guy finally won, which rarely happens in any industry, let alone where the Magnificent Ten play,” he says, referring to the US’s biggest tech companies. “I think that rallied people politically in Virginia.”
Affordability, transparency and trust are driving the debate
The opposition described in the source is not built around one concern. Residents and politicians are raising several overlapping questions about how data centers affect local life and public costs.
- Electricity bills: Hubbard and Thomas both say constituents are worried about how data centers could affect power costs.
- Water and land: Hubbard said voters raised concerns about data centers using water, electricity and land.
- Taxes: Georgia’s generous tax breaks are part of the political debate around whether data centers are paying enough locally.
- Transparency: Some companies provide public-facing information, while others lean heavily on nondisclosure agreements when building new projects.
Thomas said people have become more cost-conscious. He also said energy bills had been “kept relatively static for a number of years,” while electricity load from data centers is helping to drive up utility bills in Virginia.
The backlash is bipartisan. Although Hubbard and Thomas are Democrats, the Data Center Watch report stresses that opposition crosses party lines. National Republican politicians, including Sen. Josh Hawley, Rep. Thomas Massie and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have also begun speaking out against data centers.
Greene wrote on X on November 7: “People you have got to pay close attention to your local city, county, and state approvals of data centers and demand your water and energy bills be protected!!!”
How the industry is responding
Big tech companies have made few public statements about the pushback to data center projects. The source says Meta provides public-facing information on its data centers, while others in the industry use nondisclosure agreements that can leave communities with little or no information about projects, including which tech companies may be involved.
The Data Center Coalition, a leading industry group, argues that communities still show “significant interest” in hosting data centers. Dan Diorio, the group’s vice president of state policy, said members are committed to “continued community engagement and stakeholder education,” and to “being responsible and responsive neighbors in the communities where they operate.”
Diorio also said the US data center industry creates benefits for local communities, including high-wage jobs, economic investment and tax revenue for schools, transportation, public safety and other community priorities.
The tension is now clear. Developers and industry groups present data centers as economic infrastructure. Residents and elected officials are increasingly asking who pays for the electricity, water, land use and public risk. As more projects reach local approval processes, those questions are becoming harder for politicians to avoid.