‘We’re not for sale’: Americans want to pump brakes on data centers

Voters cast their ballots at the Faiss Middle School voting center in Las Vegas on Tuesday. | AFP-JIJI

Nov 5, 2026

NEW YORK – Voters in dozens of American cities approved restrictions or outright bans on data centers during Tuesday’s midterm elections, in one of the clearest signals that a groundswell of anger over the AI boom has cut across political divides.

“Democrat, Republican, that didn’t matter,” said Alisha Lange, a farmer from Piqua, Ohio. “People want their town back.”

She was one of the driving forces behind the grassroots group Save Piqua, which advocated for a ban on data centers with a capacity of more than 25 megawatts, effectively ruling out any large-scale project.

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