El rechazo a los centros de datos gana fuerza en la política estadounidense

Will Lawrence, Justin Pearson, and Abdul El-Sayed all despise data centers. And they all just won their primaries. Mother Jones illustration; Andrew Roth/Zuma; Andrew Roth/Sipa/AP; Dan Anderson/Zuma

Opposing data center construction is one of the most popular positions a candidate can possibly take right now — and those who fail to do so are starting to lose elections.

Will Lawrence, the Sunrise Movement cofounder who ran for Congress in Michigan’s Seventh District, won his primary on Tuesday. In his first major TV ad, Lawrence aimed at “tech billionaires” who he said want to turn Michigan’s farms into data centers that will “jack up our energy bills and ruin our home values.” Abdul El-Sayed, running for Senate in Michigan, used an under-construction OpenAI data center as the backdrop for a rally. “Until we protect local communities from the power of corrupting money and politics, we’re going to continue to see projects like this get pushed,” El-Sayed said.

Justin Pearson, a progressive candidate in Memphis who made fighting back against xAI’s data center construction a centerpiece of his campaign, just won his Congressional primary, too.

“Before data centers were all the news every single day, our community was fighting Elon Musk,” Pearson said at a recent press conference. Musk began building data centers in Memphis —and gas turbines to power them — in 2024. People like SpaceX’s billionaire owner, Pearson said, “view these communities as sacrifice zones.”

But the data center backlash isn’t strictly a Democratic-party issue. It draws on a current of populism — and suspicion of big companies, and fear of AI-prompted job loss — that goes beyond party boundaries. Opposition to data center buildout is nearly as high among Republicans as it is among Democrats.

That fact could be good news for Pearson. …