(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock, Truth Social)
IF YOU WERE THE PRESIDENT and were purposefully trying to tank your party’s chances of retaining control of Congress in an election year, you might say something like: “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.”
For dramatic effect, maybe you even come up with a new, let-them-eat-cake–style slogan along the lines of: “let Data Reign.”
As it happens, that’s exactly what Donald Trump posted to Truth Social on Monday morning:
Trump may have been throwing a bone to the Big Tech benefactors who supported his campaign and who are spending heavily on Republicans this election cycle. But his post also followed a familiar pattern: He seems perversely intent on making this campaign season as difficult as possible for the GOP—just look at his decisions to launch a trade war with Canada and sell out American cattle ranchers to a Brazilian billionaire in the same week.
But while those instances of self-sabotage impacted different voting blocs in distinct regions, the embrace of data centers was seen by the president’s opponents as him touching a new third rail, one relevant to the whole country.
“The data center issue is . . . an albatross for those who are connected to the industry,” Democratic pollster Zac McCrary told me. “Voters just want to hit the pause button, hit the stop button, and take a deep breath. Democrats and data center opponents [don’t have] to have all the answers.”
Republicans, he added, are fighting internally over the issue and “Democrats just need to get out of the way.”
For months, Democrats running in competitive races have taken note of the widespread and growing public backlash to data centers and have begun elevating their opposition to them in campaign settings. Given the public perception that data centers are responsible for rising utility costs, Democrats have tied the proliferation of those facilities to the party’s overarching midterm theme of affordability, and they’ve blamed Republican incumbents for courting them. Democratic candidates have even tied data centers to their midterm anti-corruption message, arguing that Trump supports building more precisely because they benefit those Big Tech executives. Seemingly every Democratic ad maker this cycle has cut a TV spot railing against data centers—whether for House candidates (like Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District), gubernatorial candidates (like Gina Hinojosa in Texas), or Senate candidates (like Sherrod Brown in Ohio).
But in the past few weeks, Republican officials have seemingly started to wake up to the fact that their party is on the wrong political side of the issue. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) recently released an ad stating he “stood up” to his own party on data centers; Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an audit that has frozen approvals of data centers; and Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Michigan, said he supported a “pause” on data centers.
All that, however, was before Trump’s Truth Social post Monday morning. Following that pronouncement from on high, Republicans may have to resort to equivocating, both-sides remarks, like the hedging statement Speaker Mike Johnson gave to reporters on Wednesday afternoon: “Data centers are a necessary thing,” he said, but “local concerns have to be addressed. Trust is earned.”
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DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES TOLD ME this week that they plan to send trackers to public events to ask Republicans if they agree with Trump’s “backwards and poor” comment. Capitol Hill reporters have already asked Republican lawmakers to respond to Trump’s post, resulting in some awkward moments, such as when Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told a MeidasTouch reporter, “I guess I’m backwards and poor.”
Dem operatives also said they’re vetting GOP donors for any ties to the AI industry and are scraping the internet for past comments candidates have made in favor of data-center construction—all of which is material that Democratic ad makers plan to use in attack ads later this fall.
“All these Republican candidates, no matter how much they try to separate themselves from Trump, they’re in the back seat of Trump’s car, and Trump is pressing the accelerator, heading right toward the brick wall,” McCrary told me.
On social media, a number of battleground Democratic candidates are already exploiting the tension between public opinion and the president’s pronouncement.
“Donald Trump just called Pennsylvania families ‘backwards and poor’ for asking reasonable questions about data centers in their own backyard,” posted Bob Brooks, who is running to unseat Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. Will Lawrence, who is challenging Barrett in Michigan, tweeted that “Trump is threatening anyone who dares to stand up to Big Tech billionaires.” In a direct-to-camera video, Denise Powell, running to flip Nebraska’s 2nd district, said she couldn’t wrap her head around how “insulting” Trump’s comments were. And that’s just a small sampling.
It’s difficult to recall a similar case in which the party has become so unified, so quickly in opposition to an issue—and then moved so swiftly to capitalize on it. There are some parallels to when George W. Bush embraced a Social Security privatization plan after the 2004 elections, but that fight was waged along ideological fault lines that had been there for decades. The data center debate has fault lines forming in real time.
And those fault lines risk fracturing some coalitions. Unions and construction trade groups, which have historically been an important part of the Democratic coalition, aren’t on board with Democrats’ rapid offensive against data centers. They have warned that stopping the projects will lead to fewer union jobs, and some union officials have said they won’t back candidates who oppose them.
“It’s a political inconvenience for Democrats that has to be nuanced because of our coalition,” a Democratic ad maker told me. “But it is a major electoral vulnerability for Republicans because of Donald Trump. If you look at the data-center comments, if you look at how he’s treated farmers and ranchers by importing mystery meat from God-knows-where, it’s like he’s trying to test his coalition to see who sticks by him in a Mafioso-style strategy.”
— Democratic officials can’t quite figure out what role Kamala Harris should play in the party going forward. In a recent interview with Politico, Iowa gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand said he wouldn’t want to campaign with her in the state, adding: “Let’s move on. We need some new leadership.” Iowa Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek also recently said that he did not want Harris’s help this midterm election. And last month, Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for Senate in Alaska, distanced herself from a fundraising email that Harris’s PAC sent out in support of her campaign.
Iowa and Alaska are red states that Harris lost by double digits, so it makes sense that candidates there would want to create some distance. But in less competitive statewide races and some House races, Dems have been more eager to embrace the former VP. Earlier this week, Chris Pappas, who is running for Senate in New Hampshire (a state Harris won), touted that he’d received her endorsement. Former White House staffer Dan Koh, who won his primary for a House seat in Massachusetts last night, featured an endorsement from Harris (and one from Joe Biden) in his closing campaign ad.
And there are outliers: In Tennessee’s heavily Republican 9th Congressional District, Democratic nominee Justin Pearson also promoted that he’d been endorsed by Harris.
As Harris weighs another presidential run, it’s worth keeping an eye on how midterm candidates are reacting to her. As Adam Jentleson, founder of the Searchlight Institute, observed: “A party’s voters respond to signals from leaders they respect. In the era of hollow parties, that structure is more decentralized and diffuse. So if leaders like Peltola and Sand say stuff along the lines of ‘We appreciate Harris’s service but it’s time to move on,’ that sets a tone—and Democratic voters will respond.”
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