AI data centres have become a campaign issue in today's US midterm elections. The Information's analysis of candidate platforms and public statements, published November 1, found at least one major-party nominee backing a data centre moratorium in 21 of the 36 states electing a governor today — in Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon and Texas, both nominees back a pause — and concluded moratorium backers could win in up to 15 states, with pause supporters polling ahead in Maine, New Mexico and New York and seven more races close.

The underlying numbers are contested, and worth reading with care. SiliconNoon notes the dataset both The Information and WIRED draw on — MultiState's candidate tracker, published September 18 — flags a moratorium candidate in 16 states and roughly 20 candidates in total, with only five or six of those races genuinely competitive. Of the candidates not calling for a moratorium, most back at least one other restriction, most commonly ratepayer protection so campus power costs do not land on household bills; Hawaii is the only state where neither nominee campaigns on data centre limits.

Three sitting governors have already acted: New York's Kathy Hochul, Texas's Greg Abbott and Oregon's Tina Kotek have all paused approvals for new large-scale data centres, and Anthropic listed state-level moratoriums as a business risk in its IPO prospectus last week. Whatever today's results, the count that matters for builders is local as much as statewide — Ohio alone has at least 125 local moratoriums in effect and 14 local ballot measures today.