Voters across Ohio have turned sharply against data center developments, with local ballot results and political campaigns signalling a growing public backlash against the facilities that power artificial intelligence. Preliminary counts compiled by Redbud Consulting show that voters sided against data centers in 37 of the 38 local ballot contests it tracked.
The clearest example came in Piqua, a city of about 20,000 people in western Ohio. There, voters moved to recall the mayor and two commissioners who had backed a planned data center project from Meta, a facility estimated at $1 billion and capable of drawing up to 1.4 gigawatts of power. The recall campaign made the project the central issue in local politics, and the outcome underlined how quickly opposition can translate into electoral consequences for officials who support such developments.
The Ohio results are part of a wider pattern. At least 14 Ohio municipalities have approved bans or restrictions on data centers, reflecting concerns that range from electricity bills and water use to the scale and location of the sites. Polling by Pew suggests the sentiment is not confined to one region: most Americans oppose data centers, and more say they are fearful than hopeful about the spread of AI.
Texas has seen a similar political shift. Gina Hinojosa defeated Governor Greg Abbott after campaigning on a pledge to impose a moratorium on data centers. Hinojosa also committed to repealing the state's data center tax breaks and to protecting utility bills and water supplies. The issue carries particular weight in Texas, which already has more than 400 data center facilities, many of them still under construction.
Local opposition is now having a measurable effect on the industry's pipeline. Data Center Watch, a project run by 10a Labs, estimates that in the second quarter of 2026 at least 45 projects, worth roughly $68 billion, were disrupted by community resistance. That figure points to a practical challenge for developers that goes beyond the outcome of any single vote.
The financial stakes for the largest technology companies are considerable. Combined capital expenditure by Big Tech is projected to reach between $720 billion and $740 billion in 2026. Responding to growing scrutiny, Amazon has pledged more than $1 billion over five years to its "Built Together" community programme, while Microsoft has said it will cover the cost of power infrastructure and drop certain property-tax breaks. Amazon, Microsoft and Google have also dropped nondisclosure agreement requirements for local officials, a change that addresses one of the main complaints about how projects have been negotiated.
Not every pressure point is political. The sector is also constrained by its supply chain. Large power transformers can take more than three years to deliver, and demand has surged. Demand for generator step-up transformers has nearly tripled between 2019 and 2025, with costs up about 80 per cent. Only one U.S. mill produces the grain-oriented electrical steel used in these transformers, and copper supply for transformer windings is also tight.
Financing adds another layer of risk. Oracle carries more than $125 billion in debt and needs to raise an estimated $45 billion to $50 billion in 2026. Analysts at Macquarie expect that, where costs cannot be absorbed by the companies, they may shift onto customers through higher rents and utility charges, a prospect that feeds directly into the affordability concerns voters have raised.
It remains uncertain whether these restrictions will meaningfully slow the wider buildout of AI data centers. What the Ohio and Texas results show is that local approval is no longer a formality for developers. Projects now depend on winning over the communities that host them, and on demonstrating who will bear the costs of the infrastructure they require.