Data center backlash shapes US midterms as Ohio voters push for construction bans

Grassroots resistance in the Midwest

In Defiance, a northwestern Ohio city of 17,000 people surrounded by soybean fields, residents gathered signatures for a November 3 ballot measure to ban all but the smallest data centers. City officials subsequently enacted a six-month moratorium on new project approvals after the local economic development group fielded initial inquiries from tech companies. Local residents voiced misgivings regarding the conversion of farmland, surging electricity demand, and heavy water consumption required to cool processing equipment. Public opposition accelerated following the publication of state tax records showing Ohio forfeited more than $2 billion in sales-tax revenue through data center incentives in 2024 and 2025 to benefit companies including Amazon and Meta. Becca Rupp, founder of Citizens for Responsible Development in Defiance, described the community sentiment driving the ballot campaign.

“Most people feel preyed upon by big business.”

Electoral battles in Ohio

The anti-infrastructure backlash has become a focal point in competitive midterm races that will decide control of Congress. Democratic US Representative Marcy Kaptur, facing one of the most difficult reelection campaigns of her four-decade career in a redrawn rural district, launched television advertisements accusing Republican opponent Derek Merrin of supporting the state tax breaks. Republican Governor Mike DeWine suspended new tax exemption applications pending legislative action, but state lawmakers failed to pass reforms before their summer recess. A Bowling Green State University poll released on August 31 showed that 71% of Ohioans favor a temporary ban on new data center construction. President Donald Trump has publicly rejected local construction bans, arguing that federal AI leadership requires rapid capacity growth to outpace China.

“If we kill the golden goose, we have only ourselves to blame.”

National expansion and moratoriums

Across the country, tech companies including Meta, Google, Amazon, SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are racing to expand computing capacity for artificial intelligence systems. An inventory by the Pew Research Center recorded more than 4,000 operational data centers in the United States as of mid-2026, alongside roughly 1,500 additional facilities in the planning and construction pipeline. This rapid expansion follows a summer marked by severe heat, wildfires, storms, and floods, heightening public scrutiny of commercial energy and water requirements. Grassroots groups in nearly every state have organized protests, resulting in hundreds of municipal moratoriums on new developments. Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich has launched an organized mapping project to track every planned and active facility across the nation.

“Maybe data centers are what unites us all after all.”

Operational4,000

Planning and construction1,500

Operational

4000 facilities

Planning and construction

1500 facilities

Data from the article text

Scrutiny of environmental claims

Local pushback has led several municipal governments to stop projects, such as a Massachusetts city that rejected a data center proposal in June 2026 over water supply and contamination fears. Activists frequently raise concerns over noise pollution, carbon emissions, potential PFAS chemical contamination, and construction issues like the well sedimentation that affected nearby residents during Meta's $750 million project in Georgia. Inside operating facilities, on-site personnel manage intensive physical maintenance, with technician James Waddy logging 30,000 steps daily across a 1,000,000-square-foot facility in Ashburn, Virginia, to inspect cooling tubes and detect overheating hardware. Voters in Defiance will cast their ballots on the local data center prohibition on November 3.