AI and data center expansion drew attention in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, but voters surveyed in exit polls gave the issue less weight than four other topics. In polls by NBC News and SSRS, 56 percent of respondents described AI and data centers as a decisive or important factor in how they voted.
AI ranked below every other surveyed issue
The 56 percent result placed AI and data centers at the bottom of the five topics included in the survey. Government corruption ranked first, named by 90 percent of respondents as decisive or important. Cost of living came next at 89 percent.
The other issues also drew more respondents than AI and data centers. The war in Iran registered 74 percent, while immigration enforcement reached 73 percent. The gap between those topics and AI suggests that, in this comparison, voters gave greater priority to several immediate political and economic concerns.
Interest did not make AI a leading voting factor
The poll results sit alongside a broader rise in public interest in AI over recent months. But attention to a subject does not necessarily mean it shapes a vote as strongly as other issues. The exit poll ranking shows that AI and data center expansion remained behind all four other topics asked about.
The finding is specific to the issues surveyed and to respondents’ reported views on what mattered in their vote. It does not show that voters were unconcerned about AI, or explain why some respondents considered it important. It does establish that AI placed last when compared directly with corruption, living costs, the war in Iran, and immigration enforcement.
What the ranking says about voter priorities
The results offer a snapshot of how these five subjects compared at the ballot box. Government corruption and cost of living were near the top, with nine in ten respondents calling each decisive or important. AI and data centers, by contrast, received that response from just over half of respondents.
For readers following AI policy and data center growth, the ranking is a reminder that public debate around a technology can coexist with other concerns that voters place higher. The poll does not measure the reasons behind that ordering, or whether the same ranking would hold across other questions or elections. Its central takeaway is narrower: among the five topics surveyed in the 2026 midterms, AI and data center expansion came last.
The five issues in the exit poll
- Government corruption: 90 percent
- Cost of living: 89 percent
- The war in Iran: 74 percent
- Immigration enforcement: 73 percent
- AI and data centers: 56 percent