A New York Times and Siena College poll released this week confirms what local protests across the country have been signaling for months: Americans broadly oppose AI data center construction, and the opposition is bipartisan.
The survey of 1,503 likely voters, conducted in early September before the recent AI safety slowdown discussion, found that 61 percent of respondents oppose data centers being built to power AI technology, while only 14 percent strongly support construction.
The partisan split reveals the breadth of the backlash. Among 2024 Donald Trump voters, opposition and support were roughly even, at 49 percent support to 45 percent oppose. Among Kamala Harris voters, 74 percent opposed data center construction. Non-voters leaned 67 percent against.
Among those who oppose data centers, 56 percent support regulatory limits while 38 percent prefer an outright ban. The reasons cited most frequently were environment and water usage at 32 percent, impact on local communities at 21 percent, general distrust or dislike of AI at 18 percent, followed by regulation concerns and the economy at 10 and 9 percent.
The poll builds on a trend documented by other surveys this year. An NBC News poll in March showed AI polling lower than ICE among voters, and a Gallup poll in May found seven in ten Americans opposed local data center construction in their communities.
Yet the data also suggests a limit to the political salience of the issue. When asked about the most important factors in their midterm voting decisions, respondents ranked AI and data centers near the bottom of their list. The anti-data-center sentiment is wide but shallow — voters care about it, but it is not the issue that will drive them to the polls.
The finding complicates the calculus for both parties. Democrats who might embrace anti-data-center positions as an environmental stance would risk alienating the tech industry donors who have become key allies. Republicans who champion AI infrastructure as economic growth face opposition from their own base. Neither party has yet found an effective way to weaponize the sentiment, leaving data center companies to navigate growing local resistance without clear federal political cover.
