These shifts represent a pattern we’re seeing across party lines during an election season dominated by conversations about data centers and artificial intelligence. At The Impact Project, we track where the candidates for governor stand on data centers: 143 candidates in 36 states and three territories. By our count, 69 of the 78 major party candidates have voiced positions on data centers. Thirty-eight candidates have staked out restrictive positions on data centers, while 31 are supportive, ranging from unequivocal support to reluctant support with significant safeguards and concessions. Importantly, we counted a candidate as supportive if they champion data center development, even if they want a pause or a moratorium to take a closer look first.
Across party lines, candidates appear to be trying to balance environmental and social concerns with economic and technological priorities. At least 30 support a pause, halt, moratorium, or ban, including 20 Democrats and 10 Republicans. In five states — Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, and Texas — the Democratic and Republican candidates both clearly back a pause. Among sitting governors up for reelection, a quarter back a pause; among major party candidates newly seeking the job, 43% do. The 65 third-party and independent candidates lean further toward restriction: We documented positions for 32 of them, including 19 who back a pause, moratorium, or ban. Today, we are making our research publicly available.
Candidates appear to be following voters, whose opinions have shifted rapidly. In September 2025, Americans were evenly divided over whether they would support a data center being built near their homes. By August, 75% opposed one. In Virginia, the share of voters comfortable with a new data center in their community fell from 69% in 2023 to 35% in 2026 in 2026. In May of this year, seven in 10 Americans told Gallup they oppose AI data centers in their area, with the strongest opposition in the Midwest and the South. Voters’ complaints are concrete, concerning water use, air pollution, persistent noise, rising utility bills, and projects negotiated under nondisclosure agreements without neighbor consent.
Candidates should be responsive to their constituents’ priorities, but the electorate is naturally skeptical when candidates shift their positions so dramatically during an election year. These pivots invite questions about whether some candidates’ new skepticism of the data center boom will last beyond November.
In Nevada, Democratic nominee Aaron Ford co-sponsored the 2015 law that created the state’s data center tax abatements. He now promises to pause them. His Republican opponent, incumbent Governor Joe Lombardo, once called data centers the state’s new “gold rush.” On September 18, less than two months before the election, he signed an executive order curbing the tax breaks. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, told lawmakers in January that she voted for the state’s data center tax exemption as a legislator, and that she now wants to eliminate it. Wisconsin’s Republican nominee, Tom Tiffany, called data centers “exciting new technology” in January. His campaign now says, “[w]e are America’s Dairyland, not America’s Dataland.”
Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee, Stacy Garrity, was even more blunt: Last summer she praised data center deregulation and expansion. This June, Garrity announced that “we pause for as long as we need the pause.” Garrity’s opponent, incumbent Democrat governor Josh Shapiro, has similarly flipped: Last year, Shapiro celebrated fast-tracking permitting for data center and AI development. This year, Shapiro signed an executive order proposing limits on data centers and has spoken about developers “running roughshod” over communities. In Ohio, billionaire Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called his state’s data center boom “great” in 2025. Now he promises an executive order pausing construction.
Candidates, of course, are allowed to change their minds, and these changes may be sincere. Our understanding of the burdens of data centers is growing along with the industry. The vast AI hyperscalers being built today are not the server farms of 2015, which is how Nevada’s Ford explained his shifting position.
Are we witnessing political convenience or a real change of heart? No one can see inside a candidate’s head. Voters can, however, check three things.
First, does a candidate’s promise come with a plan? Many of the loudest pledges are for a “Day 1” executive order. Executive orders are the easiest policy to make and the easiest to undo, and a pause is hollow without regulatory action to follow it up. We can ask what bill language the candidate would support, what it would require, and what happens the day a proposed pause ends. We can also question whether the candidate can deliver. Utility rates are set by public utility commissions, not governors, and tax incentives are written into law. A governor can stop new deals, but signed deals keep running. Lombardo’s order, for instance, applies only to companies seeking new tax breaks.
Second, does the plan require disclosure? We cannot regulate what we cannot measure. Many candidates describe their pause as time to study the problem. Maryland’s Republican nominee, Dan Cox, wants a moratorium “so that we can study this.” A study needs data, and data centers developers and operators are famously opaque. As data is so infrequently available directly from data centers, journalists, activists, and researchers have resorted to techniques as varied as satellite imagery, public records requests, thermal drone footage, tax document sleuthing, and human tips to collect data and break news about data centers. Yet fewer than a quarter of candidates who call for a pause call for mandatory disclosure. A pause without reporting requirements ends where it started: without the facts needed to regulate.
Third, what did the candidate do before this was popular? Votes, signed deals, and ribbon cuttings are public record. A candidate who switched should be able to say what changed and what they got wrong. One who cannot is asking voters to trust the new position on faith.
After November, voters can keep score. Watch the first legislative session and the first budget. Do data center incentives come back under a new name? Does a “Day 1” pause end with rules, or does it simply end? Communities have already shown what accountability looks like locally, where residents have recalled officials and replaced council members who approved unpopular projects. Governors deserve the same attention.
What voters want is reasonable. When a Michigan poll asked about a data center within 25 miles of home, 55% said they were not open to it, 11% were not sure, and only 33% said they were open to it. After hearing a set of protections, including no rate hikes, no tax incentives or secret deals, and closed-loop cooling, 49% said they would be open to one. What most voters oppose is data centers without rules.
Americans are demanding change, and data centers are top of mind. Candidates who mean what they say will make good on campaign promises by writing rules and passing them. The rest will let their hollow promises lapse and hope no one is counting. We all should be.
ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute
