"The Single Most Toxic Issue in the Midterms": How America Turned on Data Centers
Description: ► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/
America is hopelessly divided along party lines. That's a stubborn fact, we're told, and the polling bears it out: Democrats dislike Republicans and Republicans dislike Democrats, in almost precisely the same proportions.
But every election produces surprising coalitions that defy entrenched partisanship. In these midterms, left and right have found something so commonly loathed that politicians across the country are flip-flopping in real time.
Mother Jones has been tracking the backlash to data centers on the ground long before the water-guzzling behemoths became the country's bête noire. The AI boom, with its insatiable need for computing, has unleashed a power grab by tech billionaires. "Data centers have replaced megayachts as the preferred theater of oligarchic status signaling," national correspondent Tim Murphy wrote in his big Mother Jones investigation into hyperscale data centers and the communities they land on. "Oligarchy is now more than an idea; it is a place."
On today's episode of Stress Test, Tim joins host Garrison Hayes to discuss how data centers—and other AI-boom technologies, like Flock cameras—have upended political fortunes and ripped up the partisan playbook ahead of November’s vote.
"It's maybe the single most toxic issue in the midterms this side of, you know, gas prices," Tim tells Garrison. "It's like a three-to-one opposition among voters. Nobody wants data centers. Everybody's fired up about it."
Take Texas. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott promoted the state as a place where companies could build almost anything. Then rural and suburban communities got the facilities, and the gas plants that power them, in their backyards, along with strained water supplies, pollution, and rising utility bills. "People are complaining about what they have to live next to," Tim says. "And it just builds and builds and builds." Under pressure (and running for reelection), Abbott made a stunning reversal, announcing steps that amount to a moratorium. And he's not the only one feeling the heat.
So what changed? Data centers used to be half the size of an Amazon warehouse; now they're measured in "multiples of Manhattan," says Tim, who explains how we got here and what to expect next. He heads back to Texas in the coming weeks, and we'll follow what he learns right up to Election Day.
For more, read Tim Murphy's road trip through the towns living in the shadow of the AI boom: "How the American Oligarchy Went Hyperscale,” from our May+June issue: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/american-oligarchy-hyperscale-data-centers-meta-openai-oracle-x-musk-altman-zuckerberg-bezos/
Producer: HyoJung Kim
Assistant producer: Sonel Cutler
Executive editor: James West
Hosts: David Corn, Garrison Hayes
--
For more award-winning independent reporting, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/motherjones/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/motherjones
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/motherjonesmag Close description
America is hopelessly divided along party lines. That's a stubborn fact, we're told, and the polling bears it out: Democrats dislike Republicans and Republicans dislike Democrats, in almost precisely the same proportions.
But every election produces surprising coalitions that defy entrenched partisanship. In these midterms, left and right have found something so commonly loathed that politicians across the country are flip-flopping in real time.
Mother Jones has been tracking the backlash to data centers on the ground long before the water-guzzling behemoths became the country's bête noire. The AI boom, with its insatiable need for computing, has unleashed a power grab by tech billionaires. "Data centers have replaced megayachts as the preferred theater of oligarchic status signaling," national correspondent Tim Murphy wrote in his big Mother Jones investigation into hyperscale data centers and the communities they land on. "Oligarchy is now more than an idea; it is a place."
On today's episode of Stress Test, Tim joins host Garrison Hayes to discuss how data centers—and other AI-boom technologies, like Flock cameras—have upended political fortunes and ripped up the partisan playbook ahead of November’s vote.
"It's maybe the single most toxic issue in the midterms this side of, you know, gas prices," Tim tells Garrison. "It's like a three-to-one opposition among voters. Nobody wants data centers. Everybody's fired up about it."
Take Texas. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott promoted the state as a place where companies could build almost anything. Then rural and suburban communities got the facilities, and the gas plants that power them, in their backyards, along with strained water supplies, pollution, and rising utility bills. "People are complaining about what they have to live next to," Tim says. "And it just builds and builds and builds." Under pressure (and running for reelection), Abbott made a stunning reversal, announcing steps that amount to a moratorium. And he's not the only one feeling the heat.
So what changed? Data centers used to be half the size of an Amazon warehouse; now they're measured in "multiples of Manhattan," says Tim, who explains how we got here and what to expect next. He heads back to Texas in the coming weeks, and we'll follow what he learns right up to Election Day.
For more, read Tim Murphy's road trip through the towns living in the shadow of the AI boom: "How the American Oligarchy Went Hyperscale,” from our May+June issue: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/american-oligarchy-hyperscale-data-centers-meta-openai-oracle-x-musk-altman-zuckerberg-bezos/
Producer: HyoJung Kim
Assistant producer: Sonel Cutler
Executive editor: James West
Hosts: David Corn, Garrison Hayes
--
For more award-winning independent reporting, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/motherjones/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/motherjones
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/motherjonesmag Close description