I am naturally skeptical when analysts point to a single issue, especially if it’s not the cost of living or a major war, as a major factor in an election. But AI data centers certainly seems to have been meaningful, at least at the margins.

WaPo (“Voters reject data centers across the country as the AI backlash grows“):

Voters in at least 29 jurisdictions across the country passed bans or restrictions on data centers Tuesday, reflecting the widespread public revulsion to the facilities and adding to the growing pushback on the ambitions of the artificial intelligence industry.

Data center construction also suffered setbacks in several states that are hot spots for the projects, as Democratic candidates promising to curb the rapid proliferation of the compute warehouses won governors’ races.

Many local ballot measures limiting data centers passed with overwhelming support. In Joliet Township, Illinois, nearly 80 percent of voters moved to restrict data centers. So did more than three-quarters of voters in Hubbard, Ohio, near where President Donald Trump touted his administration’s embrace of America’s rapid AI build-out in a rally last month.

In Janesville, Wisconsin, more than 60 percent of voters weighed in to say local officials must seek voter approval on future changes to an abandoned General Motors site after pushback earlier this year over a proposed data center.

In Texas, where industry estimates show a quarter of the tech industry’s new data centers are planned to be built, Democrat Gina Hinojosa’s victory over incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott rattled the industry and its investors. She champions a moratorium on new projects along with regulations that would impose aggressive protections for the environment and electricity ratepayers from the effects of data centers’ immense energy consumption.

Some investment analysts had warned before the election that her victory would create serious headwinds for the industry, potentially putting billions of dollars in data center projects in peril.

“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk wrote in a post on X early Wednesday. He spent more than $400 million backing conservative candidates running on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s results add to the evidence of Americans’ growing opposition to data centers and deepening concerns about AI. The votes set up a clash between a broadening coalition of data center haters and those promoting their construction in the technology industry and Washington, including Trump.

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll last month found that 7 in 10 Americans, including a majority of Republicans, oppose new data center construction in their communities. Critics of the facilities complain about their noise, water use, impact on household electric bills and lack of public input, and say that data centers feed into Americans’ existing economic and political anxieties.

A voter poll conducted on behalf of major TV networks said early on Wednesday that 56 percent of midterms voters considered AI and data centers to be a major or crucial factor in their vote. That ranked them as the least influential among five issues, far behind government corruption, the war in Iran and the cost of living.

“If data center developers want to put these behind people’s backyards and put their health at risk, they’re going to have to come to the table and build them right,” said Nick Owens, an attorney and co-founder of Conserve Ohio, a group that helped residents across the state draft 10 ballot measures that would amend local charters to prohibit large-scale data centers. Owens said all 10 had passed as of late Tuesday.

Nick Wingfield, The Information (“Stunning Democratic Victories in Texas Bring Uncertainty for Data Centers, Musk“):

Texas elected Democrats for governor and the U.S. Senate for the first time in decades, creating potential uncertainty for the state’s booming AI data center sector and its most prominent tech leader, Elon Musk.

Gina Hinojosa, a Democratic congresswoman from the state, was projected to win the Texas governor’s race, prevailing over incumbent Republican governor Greg Abbott. And James Talarico, a Democratic member of the state’s House of Representatives, was projected to defeat Republican Ken Paxton in a race for a U.S. Senate seat.

Hinojosa made a proposed moratorium on new data center permits a centerpiece of her campaign against Abbott, along with a call to end tax incentives for the facilities. Abbott, too, announced a moratorium on some data center construction in September. Talarico has also advocated for more data center regulation.

The election results could be particularly awkward for Musk, who reportedly donated nearly $450 million to back Republican candidates in the midterm elections. Musk has made a major bet on Texas, relocating the corporate headquarters of his two most important companies, SpaceX and Tesla, to the state in recent years. SpaceX has a major launch site for its new rocket, Starship, in south Texas, and Musk has announced plans for a sprawling new semiconductor complex called Terafab in Grimes County, which will be a Tesla-SpaceX joint venture.

POLITICO (“Elon Musk suffers major blow in US midterms“):

Tech billionaire and Republican megadonor Elon Musk was among the biggest losers of election night, after spending hundreds of millions to boost candidates that failed to win their races.

He doled out around $446 million — the most a non-candidate has ever spent on an election, including over $200 million on Texas-related efforts. Musk’s preferred candidates across the country were swamped, losing almost everywhere, including Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race and Vivek Ramaswamy in the Ohio gubernatorial race.

His plans for a buildout of data centers across Texas are especially in doubt after Democrat Gina Hinojosa won a surprise victory over incumbent Greg Abbott in the state’s gubernatorial race.

“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Musk wrote on X on Wednesday morning, jumping off the results to boost an idea he’s trying to pursue.

He quickly followed that with a joke about election interference, writing, “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.”

Musk’s adopted home of Texas has been a hot spot for data centers and data center construction over the last couple of years, with Abbott a strong ally of both tech leaders and Wall Street.

“Amid data center backlash all across the country, Texas was supposed to be an AI oasis, where people would be able to build data centers no matter what was happening in the rest of America,” said Sam Koppelman, the publisher of Hunterbrook Media — an investigative journalism outlet connected to a hedge fund. “This election totally changed that.”

With Democrats taking control of the U.S. Congress, Musk may also be a target for a party looking to pillory tech CEOs — with some Democrats pushing to bring tech CEOs in front of Congress.

“Voters rejected Republicans in part because they were bought and paid for by AI billionaires,” Democratic Representative Greg Casar of Texas said in a statement on Tuesday evening. “Democrats must hold them accountable instead of cashing their checks.”

While I’m concerned about the potential harmful effects of what we used to call artificial intelligence before President Trump ordered the name change, I have certainly adopted it to speed up routine, mundane tasks. But I’m not unsympathetic to the backlash.

But let’s pour one out for poor Elon Musk. It’s bad enough that he spent nearly half a billion dollars backing losing candidates. But he’s moved his business enterprises to Texas, where they will now be governed by Democrats he spent some $200 million to defeat while calling them nasty names. It’s really a shame.