How the US midterm elections reflected resistance to data centres

In September, a poll found that 70 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported limiting the construction of new data centres in the United States.But that opposition was tested in Tuesday’s midterm election, with analysts examining key races to see if the public backlash would translate into votes.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Global tech stocks plunge over fears of AI curbs in USlist 2 of 3Tech stock rout, driven by US AI fears, continues in Asian tradinglist 3 of 3Protesters break into Microsoft AI data centre site in Amsterdamend of listIt did. There were 41 ballot measures related to data centres in Tuesday’s midterms, spread across the country.According to Data Centers on the Ballot, an election-monitoring project run by Redbud Consulting, voters are on track to reject data centre development in all but one of the contests.Two of the races continue to be counted but are expected to result in majorities to reject or limit data centres.Only Harwood, North Dakota, a small town with a population of fewer than 800 people, voted to oppose such limits. The measure it defeated would have required independent reviews of large industrial projects like da...