Data-center boom becomes a midterm battleground
The surge in AI-driven data centers across the U.S. is delivering large-scale economic gains for rural communities through construction jobs and tax revenue, but also fueling local opposition over energy and water use, noise, and transparency. States are debating incentives and regulations, and voters are holding officials accountable at the ballot box, turning data centers into a prominent policy issue with implications from Virginia’s concentration of centers to states weighing moratoriums or tighter rules ahead of the midterm elections.