Opposition to data center development impacted the 2026 midterm elections. Puck AI correspondent Ian Krietzberg has more.
Page F135From§Eachthe morning edition — 5 November 2026
Trump warns data-center opponents they'll end up "backwards and poor," Nasdaq ends up backwards and poor instead.
As it ran on the front
On September 1, the president posted that data-center opponents "want to end up being backwards and poor," and promised lower taxes and jobs all over the place for anyone who let Data Reign in. The next day his own commerce secretary, asked on CNBC about the same backlash, laughed off the public's concern over data centers' extreme electricity and water use as "propaganda." No number of his own went into the record — just the laugh.
On October 5, the Tech Oversight Project circulated a memo telling Democratic candidates to close the campaign's final stretch by running against high data center costs. Seventeen days later, on October 22, the Nasdaq composite had already tumbled 2.6 percent and the S&P 500 had its worst day since July — before a single ballot was cast, the index was pricing something in on its own.…
…(cont) Tuesday, voters in at least 38 jurisdictions passed bans or restrictions on data centers. One measure failed: a moratorium in Hardwood, North Dakota. Wednesday, an NBC exit poll put the number at over half of voters — the wire sentence itself cuts off before it says over half of what, which is as precise a measurement as anyone on either side has produced all week.
Thursday the Nasdaq fell 5.1 percent and entered correction territory. The S&P had its worst single session in more than a year. Both drops landed in the same 48 hours as the vote count, dragged down specifically by the sector that spent September telling the people doing the voting that they'd end up backwards and poor.
The Washington Examiner filed Thursday that blaming data centers for the election results "misunderstands a considerably more complicated reality." Maybe so. No industry filing, no Examiner column, no Commerce Department release this week put a number on what not building the centers would actually cost anyone — the commerce secretary dismissed the electricity and water complaint as propaganda back in September and still hasn't produced the figure he was laughing at.
Here is the filing run against the table, plain: 38 jurisdictions voted no on Tuesday. The index priced on those jurisdictions voting yes lost 5.1 percent on Thursday. The two entries don't require you to connect them, hon. They're just sitting in the same week's ledger, in the order they happened.
“They spent all September warning us we'd end up backwards and poor if we blocked their server farms, and thirty-eight places blocked them anyway on Tuesday. Thursday the Nasdaq did the backwards-and-poor part for them, down five percent into correction, because the whole boom was priced on us saying yes. The con was never about the water or the power numbers — it was about convincing people their vote wouldn't move the number, and this week it moved the number.”
“Look, correlation isn't causation — this is about AI capital expenditure normalization, rate expectations, a dozen factors that have nothing to do with thirty-eight ballot measures nobody outside Washington could even — did I say nobody? I meant a very engaged and well-informed electorate. Either way, the commerce secretary already told you the water and electricity numbers were propaganda, so there's really nothing here left to correct for.”
The receipts
Shares in technology companies dropped sharply, compounding recent declines and sparking concerns about the durability of artificial intelligence boom.
The Nasdaq plunged 5.1% Thursday, entering into correction territory, as investors and industry leaders braced for a data-center reckoning in the wake of Democrats' midterms sweep.
The S&P 500 slumped to its worst daily decline in more than a year, dragged down by the technology sector as investors fretted about the durability of the A.I. build-out.
An AI fraud kingpins rise and fall; voters rejected data centers; and a new fear unlocked.
Voters fought back against tech oligarchs by supporting candidates and ballot measures that would block water-sucking, heat-spewing data centers. The post Blue Tsunami’s Clearest Takeaway: People Hate Data Centers appeared first on The Intercept .
In several counties, voters turned to Democratic candidates who promised moratoriums or outright bans on building data centers, which are essential to developing artificial intelligence.
In the immediate aftermath of the Election Day “blue wave,” one headline declared, “If This Was a Data Center Election, Data Centers Lost.” Another declared that this is nothing less than an “‘AI Earthquake,’ rebuking tech and billionaires.”
Voters in at least 38 jurisdictions across the US passed bans or restrictions on data centres in Tuesday’s midterms. Almost every single data centre moratorium that was on the ballot nationwide was approved, with the exception of a bill in Hardwood, North Dakota. An NBC exit poll from Wednesday found that over half of voters […]
· Trump Lashes Out at Data Centre Opponents: ‘You’ll End up Backwards and Poor’ from the morgue, 1 Sep 2026
· Trump Commerce Secretary Once Said Data Centers ‘Suck Water,’ Now Scoffs That Such Concerns Are Just ‘Propaganda’ from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Sharp drops for AI stocks overwhelm markets worldwide as oil prices jump from the morgue, 22 Oct 2026
· Tech watchdog urges Democrats to hit GOP over high data center costs from the morgue, 5 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.