Renewables projects aren’t always popular. Heatmap regularly reports on local opposition to solar panels on farmland, wind turbines in the ocean, and grid-scale batteries just about anywhere. But data centers may be even less popular, according to a national poll conducted by our energy intelligence platform Heatmap Pro.
The poll of 3,741 American voters asked, “Would you support or oppose a data center being built near where you live?” and found that 44% of respondents would support or strongly support a data center being built near them while 42% would oppose or strongly oppose it. That’s a net support of only +2%.
Nearly all energy projects, renewable or not, fared better with the public. When a similar question was asked about natural gas, net support was 34%; for a wind farm it was 19%; for solar it was 34%; for batteries, it was 11%; for geothermal, net support was 36%; for carbon removal, it was 23%; for nuclear power, it was 10%.
It’s worth stepping back and thinking of how remarkable this is. The American public, according to Heatmap’s polling, is more skeptical of data centers which, once built, are essentially warehouses than they are of gas-fired power plants which emit, besides the greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide.
They oppose data centers more than they do wind farms with their towering turbines and mechanical hums; more than they do battery storage facilities which can erupt into super-hot fires; or even nuclear power plants, long the go-to reference for “scary energy facility.”
This suggests that political polarization around energy, where Democrats oppose fossil fuels and Republicans oppose renewables, is less potent when it comes to decisions on the ground, although there is a political gradient.
Net support among Democrats was -8%, while among Republicans it was +14%, with independents at -5%. Natural gas projects, by contrast, had positive net support among all groups, while solar projects had overwhelming net support among Democrats (+72%), strong support among independents (+42%), and mild opposition from Republicans at -3%.
The two pieces of energy infrastructure with less net support that data centers are transmission — captured in the survey by the descriptive phrase “large-scale power line” — at net 1% and coal power — by far the most polluting power infrastructure deployed at scale in the United States — at -18%.
Heatmap asked further questions about how Americans understand the benefits and drawbacks of data centers in their communities.
The most convincing was that “data centers create high-paying construction and operations jobs,” which 63% of respondents found very or somewhat convincing — a net convincing of +26%. Just below that was “Data centers can increase local tax revenue that supports schools, emergency services, and infrastructure,” with a net convincing of +24%.
Respondents were far more skeptical of reasons to support data centers that were less tangible or more global. “Many data centers are powered by renewable energy,” was +10% net convincing, while “Data centers are necessary for America to win the AI race against China,” was only +4%. (That question also featured the biggest partisan split. While 61% of Republicans found “the AI race against China” argument convincing, only 45% of Democrats and 40% of independents did.) But when asked about the most convincing reasons to oppose data centers, the idea that they “might require wind or solar farms to be constructed nearby” was only +6% net convincing, while the argument that they could lead to a natural gas power plant being built nearby was +22% net convincing.
Again, tangible, local effects were the most compelling to respondents, as was suggested by the data on specific projects.
The argument that data centers consume too much water was +34% net convincing; while “data centers consume large amounts of electricity, which may increase utility bills,” was +46% net convincing.
These results are consistent with some of the anti-data-center activism that has popped up in opposition to proposed projects. The city council of Tucson, Arizona, rejected an Amazon project in part due to concerns about effects on drinking water. A $2 billion data center project in Indiana was rejected this week after a public meeting where residents “raised issues around energy usage, environmental impact, and public health,” Data Center Dynamics reported.
Earlier this year, another Indiana data center project was rejected after “residents cited a number of concerns, including noise, power and water consumption and the impact on property values,” Lakeshore Public Media reported.
These concerns should be familiar to anyone who follows the fight around renewable siting. All of these concerns — construction impacts, sightliness and property values, taking up agricultural land — are commonly brought up when local communities oppose a solar or wind farm.
The Heatmap Pro poll of 3,741 American registered voters was conducted by Embold Research via text-to-web responses from August 22 to 29, 2025. The survey included interviews with Americans in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.
A chart showing last year's spike in blackouts from major weather events.EIA
