The Pro-Data Center Lawmakers Most at Risk in the Midterms - Newsweek

Sixteen candidates who have backed policies supportive of data centers are fighting for their political futures in races rated as tossups, according to a Newsweek analysis.

The group includes candidates in closely fought House contests across Pennsylvania, Iowa, Virginia and other battleground states, as well as Senate candidates in Maine and Iowa. Their data-center scores range from 3.0 to 4.2 on a five-point scale, with Republican Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania recording the highest score among the candidates identified.

Newsweek identified the 16 candidates by cross-referencing tossup race ratings from the Cook Political Report (as of September 25) with its newly launched AI Policy Scorecard, an interactive tool showing where every sitting member of Congress stands on artificial intelligence. The scorecard rates lawmakers from 1, "AI Skeptic," to 5, "AI Booster," based on their voting records and public positions across five areas: regulation and authority, data centers and energy, jobs and the economy, safety and privacy, and national security.

The overlap could become politically significant as data centers emerge as an issue in the midterms and voters raise concerns about their effects on communities. A September PBS News/NPR/Marist poll found that 65 percent of registered voters opposed data-center construction in their communities, including 43 percent who strongly opposed it. Fifty-eight percent said construction would have a mostly negative effect on the country.

The comparison does not establish that data-center policy is driving any individual contest or predict which candidates will win.

The records behind the scores show that the 16 candidates are not uniformly in favor of unrestricted construction. Several have combined support for faster permitting or additional power generation with measures intended to protect ratepayers, preserve local authority or increase transparency.

Two of the best-known candidates on the list are Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Republican Representative Ashley Hinson, who is running for the Senate in Iowa. Collins, who scored 4.0 on data centers, despite an overall AI rating of "lean skeptic," has supported projects at former Maine mill sites on a case-by-case basis while warning that the facilities could consume too much energy and increase electricity costs.

Hinson, who scored 3.8 based on her current House record, has made a broader economic and national-security case for development. She has described data centers as critical infrastructure that creates rural jobs and tax revenue, while arguing that expanded AI capacity is necessary for the U.S. to compete with China.

Perry has presented rapid construction as part of the strategic competition with China. He said the U.S. was "in a race for AI with China" and "simply can’t afford to slow down the build-out." His record also includes votes for the SPEED Act, the GRID Power Act and the Ratepayer Protection Act.

The SPEED Act would streamline federal environmental reviews and limit the range of projects and effects examined under the National Environmental Policy Act. This would potentially accelerate permits for new energy and data-center infrastructure.

The GRID Power Act would direct federal regulators to revise grid-connection rules so dependable, dispatchable power projects could receive priority when they improve reliability.

The Ratepayer Protection Act would require states to consider making data centers using at least 100 megawatts cover the full incremental cost of the generation and grid upgrades needed to serve them. So, those costs would not be left with other electricity customers.

Michigan Republican Representative Tom Barrett, whose data-center score is 3.8, despite an overall AI rating categorized as "lean skeptic," voted for the same three measures. He has also opposed a federal moratorium on data-center construction while arguing that members of Congress should not determine local zoning decisions.

Other candidates have coupled development-oriented votes with more targeted safeguards. New York Republican Representative Mike Lawler co-sponsored the Data Center Transparency Act. This would require federal reporting on water use, environmental effects, electricity consumption and the effect of data centers on household utility bills. He also co-sponsored the Unleashing Low-Cost Rural AI Act, which calls for a study of AI and data-center growth’s effects on energy supply, reliability, land, water and consumer costs.

Pennsylvania Republican Representative Ryan Mackenzie co-sponsored the Advancing Water Reuse Act; this proposes a tax credit for water-recycling projects including systems at data centers. He has also said the facilities should pay proportionally for the energy they use.

Pennsylvania Republican Representative Rob Bresnahan, meanwhile, sponsored the Local Control Protection Act. The bill would reinforce local authority over data-center zoning decisions and condition federal tax incentives on publicly filed community-benefit agreements. At the same time, Bresnahan has called for getting "the shovels in the ground fast enough" to meet projected data-center demand in his district while protecting residents on fixed incomes.

Those positions illustrate the emerging center of the debate. The question facing many lawmakers is no longer simply whether data centers should be built. Rather, they must ask how quickly construction should proceed; where facilities should be located; and whether developers or existing electricity customers should bear the cost of the infrastructure they require.

That distinction was laid bare in the House’s 417-3 passage of the Ratepayer Protection Act.

The House candidates identified in Newsweek’s analysis supported the measure. Their votes do not cancel out otherwise supportive data-center records. Rather, they indicate support for continued development under a principle that has drawn overwhelming bipartisan backing: existing customers should not automatically be left paying for the additional infrastructure required by large technology companies.

The growth of generative AI has turned data centers from a relatively specialized planning issue into a debate involving household costs, economic development, infrastructure and national security.

Data centers consumed about 4.4 percent of U.S. electricity in 2023, according to a report produced by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The report projected that the share could rise to between 6.7 and 12 percent in 2028, depending on the pace of expansion and other economic factors.

In absolute terms, the laboratory estimated that data-center electricity consumption rose from 58 terawatt-hours in 2014 to 176 terawatt-hours in 2023. It projected demand of between 325 and 580 terawatt-hours in 2028.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in March that electricity demand had grown by an average of about 1.7 percent annually between 2020 and 2025; this is compared with 0.1 percent between 2005 and 2019. The agency identified data centers as a driver of the recent increase and forecast that electricity load would grow by 1.9 percent in 2026 and 2.5 percent in 2027.

The growth is not distributed evenly. The EIA projected that annual electricity load would rise fastest in the regions managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and PJM; this serves all or parts of 13 states and Washington, D.C. Those areas include Texas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey and Michigan, all states containing races identified in Newsweek’s analysis.

Electricity is not the only source of local concern. Some data centers use water as part of their cooling systems, although consumption and cooling methods vary among facilities.

An Environmental Protection Agency case study of a water-reuse project in Quincy, Washington, said a system built by the city and Microsoft offset demand by 138 million gallons a year. It achieved this by treating and recirculating cooling water from a data center. The project was designed to reduce reliance on potable groundwater in an arid region.

The case illustrates both sides of the infrastructure debate. Data centers can create concentrated new demand for electricity and water, while developers, local governments and utilities can invest in systems intended to reduce their effect on existing resources.

Supporters also argue that expanding domestic data-center capacity is important to investment, innovation and competition with China. The House Energy and Commerce Committee described U.S. leadership in AI as important to economic prosperity and national security while arguing that development should include protections for consumers.

The Ratepayer Protection Act would require state utility regulators and nonregulated utilities to consider a standard under which large data centers would bear the full incremental cost of generation, transmission or distribution upgrades needed to serve them.

It defines covered facilities as nonresidential customers operating information-technology infrastructure with peak electricity demand of at least 100 megawatts at one site or campus. The standard would include costs that remain if a customer cancels an agreement or stops buying electricity after upgrades have been planned.

The bill would also require covered customers to provide financial assurances or contributions before a utility undertook the necessary upgrades.

"Hardworking families should not have to subsidize the energy demands of data centers," Republican Representative Evans of Colorado, the bill’s sponsor, said after it passed the House. He said the measure was intended to make large data centers pay for required infrastructure while leaving states flexibility over implementation.

Newsweek’s analysis captures lawmakers’ records, not the motives of individual voters.

The national polling establishes broad concern, but it does not show how prominently data centers rank alongside the economy, immigration, presidential approval and other issues in each contest. Nor does it establish that opposition to a local data center will translate into opposition to a member of Congress.

The Marist survey was conducted September 14 and 15 among 1,280 registered voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The same poll found Democrats leading Republicans by 53 percent to 41 percent on the generic congressional ballot, while 45 percent of registered voters said their congressional vote was mainly a vote against President Donald Trump.

Those results provide essential context. Candidates may be campaigning in a national environment shaped by broader partisan and presidential forces, even where data-center construction has become locally contentious.

The scores also measure positions across time. A candidate could respond to voter concerns by supporting stronger ratepayer protections, water standards, disclosure requirements or local control without rejecting data-center construction altogether.

That creates a more complicated political question than whether a candidate is simply "for" or "against" the facilities. The emerging divide is also about who pays for new infrastructure, who decides where projects are built and what protections communities receive in exchange.

The political risk to the 16 candidates will become clearer if challengers increasingly make data centers part of their closing arguments, particularly in places facing proposed developments, utility-rate proceedings or pressure on local water and electricity systems.

The Ratepayer Protection Act offers incumbents an opportunity to argue that supporting AI infrastructure and protecting consumers are compatible positions. Opponents, meanwhile, may focus on whether candidates acted before data centers became politically difficult or only responded as the midterms approached.

The scorecard provides a record against which those claims can be tested. But whether data centers become decisive will depend less on a national score than on what voters see in their own communities: promised investment and technological capacity, or higher costs and new demands on shared resources.

For the candidates in the closest races, that local judgment could determine whether a supportive record is viewed as an economic asset or an electoral liability.

Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to help produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.