From rural Michigan to Oklahoma, Americans are turning against elected officials who quietly approve massive datacenter projects, triggering a rare political backlash that unites voters across party lines and threatens careers.
The anger boils down to one word: transparency. In Lenox Township, north of Detroit, a mysterious website appeared in May promoting a "proposed advanced technology and data center campus." It named no one. Township officials claimed no application had been filed. Then residents pulled emails through open records requests proving developers had been negotiating with township leadership all along.
Residents packed four-hour public meetings. When the board refused to extend a moratorium on datacenter development, they collected signatures to recall four trustees. "The community still has questions that aren't being answered and the public deserves to have transparency," one resident said at a June meeting.
Lenox is not alone. Across the country, voters in California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas have launched recall efforts against elected officials over their handling of datacenter proposals. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, at least 75 datacenter projects worth roughly $130 billion were blocked or delayed, matching the total opposition for all of 2025.
The scale of the backlash reflects genuine concern about infrastructure strain. The United States has more than 4,400 datacenters. A single facility can consume as much electricity as 2,000 homes and use 300,000 gallons of water daily, with large operations reaching 5 million gallons per day. That consumption strains water supplies and electric grids, forcing utilities to raise rates. Residents nearby also endure constant humming from cooling systems and air pollution.
But the infrastructure worry masks a deeper problem: secrecy. When developers pitch these projects, they routinely use non-disclosure agreements to hide which tech companies would operate the facilities. A study found that 80 percent of Virginia localities with existing, approved or proposed datacenters had signed NDAs with project backers. "The company usually goes public only after the decisive votes have been taken," said Michael Bommarito, author of "How to Fight a Data Center."
In Festus, Missouri, a Trump county where the mayor promised "tremendous benefits" from a $6 billion datacenter agreement, residents collected enough signatures to trigger a recall election. The city council rejected the petition anyway. In Yukon, Oklahoma, a Republican banker and vice-presidential candidate filed to recall the mayor and vice-mayor over a $1 billion datacenter deal. After the recall effort, the vice-mayor resigned.
The opposition spans the political spectrum in ways that have become unusual. Environmental Democrats worry about energy consumption and coal-fired power plant revitalization. Republicans fret about electricity bills and water rationing. "People feel like this technology is being shoved down our throats," said Evan Sutton, a Seattle strategist who has volunteered with datacenter opponents in ten states.
The Trump administration has pushed hard for rapid datacenter construction. Some pro-business Republicans have alleged that Chinese propaganda drives opposition. Kevin O'Leary, a Shark Tank star opposing his own Utah project, claimed on Fox News that opponents were funded by China. He later admitted having no evidence. Fox News issued on-air apologies in June for airing the claims.
What residents have documented is more prosaic: coordinated secrecy. The Lenox datacenter website was powered by One Click Politics, a political advocacy software platform. Investigation revealed the account was tied to Sabrina Bachwich, chief operating officer of Grassroots Midwest. When asked if her firm created the site, Bachwich denied it by text, then stopped responding when shown additional evidence. The campaign website now displays a message: "This campaign has ended and is no longer taking action."
For residents like Dennis McDonald, a history teacher and pizza deliverer in Festus who ran for Missouri statehouse in 2018, the fight has created unexpected bonds. "I met a ton of people that I never would have met, and they have done amazing work and talked to their neighbors and knocked on their doors," McDonald said. His legal challenge to the city council's rejection of the recall petition is ongoing.
Author James Rodriguez: "The real story here isn't whether datacenters are good or bad for America, it's that ordinary people across the country are willing to fight back when officials treat them like they don't deserve a seat at the table."
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