Democratic midterm wins hit AI stocks in Asia as data centre curbs loom

Democrats take both chambers and reshape the data centre debate

Media projections gave Democrats majorities in the House and the Senate in the US midterm elections on Tuesday, 3 November. The result is a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump, who has backed the AI infrastructure build-out. Several Republican candidates had already distanced themselves from him on the issue during the campaign.

Three governor races turn on data centres

Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat incumbent Republican Greg Abbott in Texas, having promised an immediate moratorium on data centre development in the state. Texas had lured tech giants including OpenAI, Anthropic, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon with tax breaks, cheap energy and land. Forecasts suggest her win could put many announced projects at risk. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms won the governorship and has pledged a temporary statewide pause on construction, while CBRE puts Atlanta at nearly 2.9 gigawatts of data centres under construction, ahead of Northern Virginia. In Ohio, Amy Acton beat Vivek Ramaswamy and promised a conditional freeze on new approvals that fail strict energy and water criteria. Elon Musk, who moved the headquarters of Tesla and SpaceX to Texas, joked on election night that data centres in space seemed especially interesting at the moment.

Exit polls and planned capacity

NBC News exit polls found that 56% of voters called AI data centres a decisive or important factor in their congressional vote, and most of them backed Democrats. Bloomberg puts planned US data centre capacity at 303 GW, most of it in states that voted in the midterms. About 170 GW lies in states with governor and legislative elections, 91 GW in states with legislative elections alone, and about 8 GW in states with elected energy regulators. Only 34 GW sits in states without a relevant election. Texas is projected to account for about a quarter of US data centre capacity through 2030.

Governor and legislative elections170

Legislative elections only91

Elected energy regulators8

No relevant election34

Governor and legislative elections

170 GW

Legislative elections only

91 GW

Elected energy regulators

8 GW

No relevant election

34 GW

Data from the article text

Asian shares fall, then losses narrow

Asian markets opened lower on 4 November. The Nikkei fell 3% to a five-month low in early trading and was 1.4% lower later in the session. Tokyo's Topix dropped 1.5% after a holiday, with Kioxia losing more than 11% and Advantest more than 7%. In Seoul, the Kospi was down about 3% in pre-market trading, and Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix shares slid, at one point by about 6%. SoftBank, a large AI investor, lost more than 9% at its worst, while the Seoul market later erased its early losses completely.

Wall Street, safe havens and AI earnings

US index futures fell in the early hours, with Nasdaq 100 futures down 2.1% and S&P 500 futures down 1.2%. The Nasdaq 100 had already lost nearly 10% from its October record high before the vote. By 15:30 Swiss time, US opening futures pointed to gains of about 0.5%. Sean Callow of ITC Markets called the threat to tech the main theme of the result, while Kim Seok-hwan of Mirae Asset Securities warned that projects could be delayed if Texas imposed a moratorium, as New York has. Investors moved into safe havens: gold rose 2.9%, 10-year US Treasury yields fell four basis points, and the dollar slipped 0.3% to 1.118 against the euro. Company results point the other way, as AMD and Super Micro raised revenue forecasts and Meta sold $15 billion of corporate bonds successfully.