Polls show data centers are broadly unpopular with both Democratic and Republican voters. President Donald Trump is championing the tech facilities anyway, raising concerns among his GOP allies that he is hitching the party to a losing issue ahead of the midterm elections.
Communities will only reject data centers “if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. The president “knows the polling on data centers is bad,” said Politico, but sees them as one of the country’s “few investment engines humming in an otherwise sputtering economy.” His outspoken defense of the centers puts him at odds with GOP Senate candidates Mike Rogers in Michigan and Ken Paxton in Texas who have worked to “distance themselves” from the Big Tech companies building the facilities. That could hurt Republican candidates in November. Tech companies have “overplayed their hand and overstayed their welcome,” former White House strategist Steve Bannon said to the outlet.
“Has Mr. Trump lost his populist touch?” Matthew Continetti said at The Wall Street Journal. Not exactly. The president’s populism has “always had a pro-growth streak,” and his support of data centers reflects his belief that “national economic development” is the key to winning the United States’ “strategic competition” with China. AI is “supercharging investment and GDP” and is one area where the U.S. has a “qualitative edge” over its rivals. Republicans should not go down an “antigrowth, antidevelopment rabbit hole” but instead work to address “reasonable” concerns about data centers “without sacrificing economic prosperity and American prestige.”
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The president is “losing touch with the public,” David A. Graham said at The Atlantic. Polls show that three-fourths of Americans “oppose a data center being built near where they live.” Politicians as disparate as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have critiqued the centers and put themselves on the side of voters. Trump’s defense of data centers puts him in the “unusual position of misreading, and opposing, a populist groundswell.”
Why the misstep? The president has surrounded himself with Big Tech figures like David Sacks and Larry Ellison, and “his financial disclosures show he’s become more of a tech investor,” said Graham. He is also spending less time giving speeches and hosting rallies where he can directly gauge voter sentiment. Trump is “not hearing from voters who might alert him to how unpopular data centers are.”
What next?
Democrats see Trump’s embrace of data centers as a “gift” ahead of the midterm elections, said The Hill. They are also reminding voters that nearly every Republican in Congress voted for the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that “encourages the construction of new data centers by providing generous tax credits” for their construction. GOP candidates “are taking their cues from the public backlash, rather than the president.” But the president’s fierce advocacy “does cause some challenges for members,” a GOP operative said to the outlet.
