63% of registered US voters oppose an AI data center within ten miles of their home. 13% support one. The figures come from the CNBC All-America Economic Survey, published by CNBC on Saturday.
The survey covered 1,000 registered voters nationwide, conducted October 14 to 18 by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies, with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. The proximity question went to a half-sample of roughly 500 voters, margin of error 4.38 points.
Inside the Republican camp, the split runs straight through
The Republican numbers are where this gets interesting. 55% of MAGA supporters want companies to keep developing advanced AI while Congress works on regulations; 27% would prefer a pause. Only 29% would support a data center within ten miles of home, and 40% oppose one. Take all Republicans and Republican-leaning voters together and support falls to 24%.
Democrats are less divided: 80% opposed, 4% in favour.
The number campaign strategists will watch sits further down. Asked for their top concern if Republicans retain Congress, 18% named a failure to regulate AI and data centers. That ties continued military efforts in Iran and outranks further ICE deportations at 15%, cuts to health insurance subsidies at 10% and an extension of Trump’s tariffs at 5%. Even among voters who want Republicans to keep control, 17% named weak oversight of AI and data centers, second only to a failure to bring prices down.
Two quotes, two sets of arithmetic
“Many people are annoyed by these data centers,” says Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma and co-founder of Public First Action PAC, which is funded by the AI industry and pushes for tighter rules. “People are also strongly insistent upon reasonable guardrails of AI, and that’s going to be hard to beat.”
The other side counts in local benefits. “The data center industry provides significant, tangible benefits,” says Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition, pointing to jobs, investment and tax revenue. Operators, he says, are committed to “paying for the energy we use.”
None of this is brand new. In August the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned AI companies that data center backlash was threatening Sen. Jon Husted’s reelection in Ohio, calling the issue a midterm sleeper.
They want the technology, not the construction site
This survey separates two questions that tend to collapse into one in Washington. Whether America should keep developing AI is barely contested, not even among Trump’s supporters. Whether the power, the water and the noise for it should appear in your own neighbourhood is a different question entirely, and there the majority flips.
For Anthropic, OpenAI and their landlords, that means the political headwind is not coming from the debate about models. It is coming from utility bills. What that looks like in practice shows up this week in the fight over Anthropic’s planned site in Queensland, where the argument is about bores rather than benchmarks. Both are versions of the same sum: the benefit is national, the cost is local, and elections are local.