The Midterms' Unlikely Villain: Data Centers

0:00I think it was 8% of all the campaign ads that ran in July mentioned data centers. That number was 1% the year before. So it's a huge jump and it just goes to show like, this is on the radar now. A huge debate about artificial intelligence has been playing out this week on social media and in the halls of Congress. Among the questions being asked, could the technology one day wipe out the human race? Or so shouldn't there be stricter safeguards in place? Who should decide what those look like? The tech companies, Congress? Should it be regulated at all? President Trump is making his campaign message on AI very clear. I'm going to read part of a lengthy post he put up this morning. Quote, the only control or guardrails that AI needs is a strong and smart, high IQ exclamation point president. And the USA has that in spades, exclamation point. But as the appetite for artificial intelligence has grown in this country, so too is the need

1:00for data centers to power the technology. And polls show that most Americans don't support these massive facilities. So how are political candidates talking about this issue as we head towards the midterms? My colleague David Wright covers political spending and advertising. He recently teamed up with our investigative unit for a big deep dive into this issue. So today I'm going to ask him what these ads look like and how a brewing big tech backlash has scrambled previously predictable political fault lines. From CNN, I'm David Reind and this is one thing midterms. Stick with us. On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. Pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride. Before the trip begins, your app gives you a unique pin. Just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start. Hey, what'd you pin? Mm-hmm. Two, five, three, eight. That way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger. Make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from Uber.

2:02One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more on the Uber app. Okay, David. So I have to admit, I did not have data centers becoming a major political issue on my bingo card for these midterms, but yet here we are. So how exactly do voters feel about them? Yeah, we've seen a pretty striking sort of popular revolt against data centers so far the selection. Doing the story we looked at some polls and they showed anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of voters said that they would oppose a data center being constructed in their area. Yes, so just overwhelming opposition on this cut across party lines. And I think a lot of this has to do with sort of the most proximate cause of the frustration which is what we've seen so far, electricity bills going up. And that's something that has been tied to the data center boom pretty consistently studies from economists and energy agencies. Yeah, I mean, is it just cost of living issues or is there some like deeper mistrust that

3:03people have with the concept in general? Yeah, that is exactly right. There is this deeper sort of existential anxiety about the technology that these data centers are powering. And people really drawing a link between like, hey, my electricity bill might be going up to subsidize the technology that someday could maybe take my job or pose a threat. And so I think that that sort of combined to create a really pretty toxic political sentiment and that's what you see candidates really across the country reacting to. So how does that end up manifesting in political advertising or messaging from these campaigns? Yeah, I think we saw the first signs of this back in 2025 in these governors races in New Jersey and Virginia. And since then we've seen this sort of tick up and percolate and looking at the ad data for the story that we did, what we saw was a huge spike in the month of July, $16 million spent on broadcast TV ads about data centers, which is really unprecedented. I think it was 8% of all the campaign ads that ran in July mentioned data centers.

4:08That number was 1% the year before. So it's a huge jump and it just goes to show like, this is on the radar now. One of the other things that's been striking about this messaging trend is how, you know, as recently as 2024, we did not see any campaigns that mentioned data centers for a long time. Not a single one? No, for a long time these were pretty uncontroversial projects, you know, and that's because for a long time they weren't really explicitly associated with AI, right? Like older data centers. It's not like data centers themselves are a new thing. No, that's exactly right. In the past it might have been a data center hosted, you know, servers for YouTube or Amazon. Now it's running chat GPT or ClawD and that just creates a totally different political valence for that infrastructure. So what are these ads that we're seeing on TV left and right? What do they look like? Yeah, I think one of the best examples of this has got to be the Senate race in Ohio between the incumbent Republican Senator John Houston and his Democratic challenger, Shared Brown. The important point here is Houston was former Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, you know,

5:11in 2019 up until his appointment to the seat in 2025. And during that time, Houston welcomed the tech industry to Ohio and, you know, bringing Google data centers to Ohio in 2019 was not such a bad thing. And you have quotes from Houston at the time saying, this will be great for Ohio. Flash forward to 2025, 2026. The ground has totally shifted and, you know, now Shared Brown is just hammering away on Houston. Why are there 226 data centers in Ohio? 5th most of any state. John Houston, that's why he's run three ads, I think, since July with more than $3 million behind them. He's been called the face of data centers in Ohio. Why? Because John Houston spent years aggressively recruiting data centers to the state, cutting sweetheart tax deals and fast tracking approvals while ordinary residents watch their electricity bills explode. Other ads that call Houston, the face of data centers in Ohio, there are background images of servers and chips and even one kind of colorful ad that shows like a Pac-Man

6:17eating up towns, you know, like a data center. So it's a very visual visceral case that Shared Brown is making. A total scam on the people of Ohio. I'm sure Brown and I approve this message. What's most interesting about this actually is just about a month ago, less than a month ago, the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, you know, this big National Republican institution released the strategy memo and it was like, this is a problem. Shared Brown is making a very strong case here and they described it really as an anchor around Houston's neck. All right, got to take a break, but when we return, big tech bites back. Stick around. With Share My Trip from Uber, you can send your live trip location to the ones who matter most, like Dan and Hannah who always wait up to make sure their daughter gets back to her college dorm room. Or Tiffany, who's running late as usual and her friends are tracking her trip to make sure she's actually on her way.

7:18Or Sam, who never goes anywhere without her roommate knowing exactly where she is. Some journeys are meant to be shared. Share your ride in real time with Share My Trip on Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more on the Uber app. Also how is big tech responding? How are these AI companies responding? I can't imagine they would want this sentiment of the anti-data centers, anti-AI to just spread across the airways unchecked. That's right. And there are hundreds of billions of dollars online here. You have leaders and industry heavyweights who are stepping into the political arena very aggressively. The venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, the president of OpenAI, Greg Brockman helped stand up. The super PAC leading the future that is spending tens of millions of dollars, I think more than $40 million through about the midpoint 2026. When President Trump needed someone he could trust in the United States Senate, he didn't wait for a politician to come to him. He called Darleen Graham and asked her to run.

8:19This is interesting because I think it also speaks to just the sort of toxic politics around data centers, which is that even the advocates are not really talking about data centers in their ads. They are very often talking about candidates that they like on AI regulation, but touting other values, calling them fighters. Darleen will fight for Trump's agenda, secure the border, cut taxes. Winking them to Trump endorsements or promoting their concerns about affordability just broad, kitchen table issues that are mostly uncontroversial. So there's a good chance that if you're seeing a political ads going on the attack against somebody, it could be funded by AI companies or big tech interest aligned groups, but they don't mention that in the ads themselves. That's certainly been the case in some of these races. They've run pretty generic promotional ads for candidates. The flip side is you do see some sharper attack ads that get launched. There's another group called public first, and that group has received, I think, $40 million

9:19for a manthropic, which is a rival AI lab. We actually saw these two sides kind of clash in this very contentious House primary in New York's 12th district early this year. That's where state assemblyman Alex Borrez was really sort of a high profile contender. He did not win the primary, but he was the target of tens of millions of dollars in ad spending from both of these groups leading the future through some of its proxies. Public first as well. First was supporting Borrez. We had a future in the allies were opposing him and they were kind of arguing over this candidate who played a pretty central role in steering AI regulation legislation in the New York state assembly. He's a former Palantir employee who sort of speaks about his experience in the industry and how it's alerted to him to how important it is to get these regulations right. It's just a really good example of how much a money is being spent. This is tens of millions of dollars on a House race, but then also just how much it scrambled

10:20alliances and all these sort of dividing lines. Right. I guess finally though, you mentioned that the Republican infrastructure kind of acknowledged that this is a problem in some of these races. So I'm wondering why President Donald Trump continues to embrace them. So vocally, didn't he write on social media, let data reign like what's going on? Yeah. This is really interesting. The president has come out very much in favor of data centers and opposed to the sort of heavy handed regulation that some people would like to see on the industry. And I think that there are a couple of reasons for this. One is that the president's advisors, the ones who have his ear on this issue are people who are closely related to Silicon Valley and the AI labs. And I think the second thing is that there are also more immediate political incentives at play. A lot of the big tech companies, a lot of the companies that are involved in AI are big donors

11:20to various Trump interests. The construction jobs are enormous. We're building the biggest plants anywhere in the world. And then I think that Trump is a real estate guy. He's a construction guy. And I do think there's a part of him that just really appreciates like these sprawling hundred acre campuses. He's a lot to see a building go up where there wasn't a building before. Yeah, totally. And you look at them and they are really, they're incredible sites like huge, huge, huge developments. So I have to imagine that kind of scratchers in his for him. And if you don't take it, you're going to be left behind because there are plenty of places that want it. So I would say that maybe he can use a little public relations help. But if I were a governor or mayor, I would want that plant in my community and many of them. But say lastly, the other factor that he is probably weighing is geopolitics. I think there are a lot of people in the national security space, more hawkish-minded lawmakers who view this really primarily through the lens of competition with China. Yeah, I mean, experts say that is a real concern.

12:21But a lot of average Americans who are seeing these go up in their backyard are not necessarily worried about that at this point. Yeah. And it's interesting because Trump is sort of a populist by nature. In this instance, he finds himself kind of crosswise with those interests. And what's also interesting about this is like that's a problem for many candidates. Like shared Brown and Ohio is very as we discussed, opposed to data centers. He's also sort of in his previous role as the former senator, a big ally of labor. But labor actually is another contingent that is very much in favor of data centers and data center construction because of the trades jobs that it provides. So it's just an issue that's complicated for a lot of people and there are competing interests with real stakes in the outcome. Fastening. Well, David, thank you so much for talking to us about it. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. All right, that's all the time we have for now. Make sure you stay locked into this feed. We'll have another update with all the latest headlines later today. And I'll talk to you next time.

13:29On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. Pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride. Before the trip begins, your app gives you a unique pin. Just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start. Hey, what's your pin? Mm-hmm. 2538. That way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger. Make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. One more on the Uber app. Brussels clean up nicely at sweet green. Maple glazed, roasted and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweet greens fall harvest is back on the menu and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app.