US 2026 Midterms: Backlash Against AI Data Centers Becomes Campaign Flashpoint in San Francisco Bay Area

Oakland, California — Protesters in cardboard robot costumes cheered and danced to drumbeats outside Oakland City Hall last month to oppose the construction of new data centers. Their main concern centered on how these facilities — which process vast volumes of digital information — could strain the power grid.

According to the protesters, the consequences go beyond environmental harm to include soaring electricity bills for local households.

“Electricity prices in Oakland have risen so high that some people are considering cutting off their power,” said Carlos Gutierrez, an activist with the environmental justice group Communities for a Better Environment. “Yet the city is planning to supply power to a data center.”

Opposition to data centers is spreading across the United States as residents voice concerns about how quickly such facilities are expanding. According to the Pew Research Center, more than 3,000 data centers are now operating in the US, with more than 1,500 others in development.

But the backlash is perhaps most visible in the San Francisco Bay Area of California — a region regarded as the heart of the artificial intelligence boom. Major AI companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta are headquartered here, and the industry's growth has been credited with driving a local economic revival.

Data centers house the advanced computer chips and servers needed to run AI services such as Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT. But they also require round-the-clock electricity and large amounts of water to cool their processors. Even with cooling technology, data centers are notorious for radiating heat, which can raise ground surface temperatures by as much as 9 degrees Celsius.

A midterm election issue

Concerns about the environmental and financial costs of rapidly expanding data centers have pushed the issue into the center of debates ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections. In the two months before voting, at least seven Bay Area cities, including San Francisco and Richmond, passed moratoriums on data center construction. Oakland was among them, approving a moratorium on October 6 after days of protests.

Local politicians running in this election have also seized on data centers as a wedge issue to win support from certain groups of voters. One of the most closely watched races in the Bay Area is for the seat left open by longtime Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. After 39 years in the House, Pelosi will retire at the end of this year.

Two Democrats are competing to replace her in Congress: San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and state Senator Scott Wiener. Each has a different stance on AI data centers. Wiener opposes any ban on data centers, telling the Mission Local newspaper that “blanket moratoriums on data centers could undermine AI governance.”

Chan, meanwhile, has pledged to pursue a nationwide moratorium on data centers, at least until responsible AI regulations are in place. “Let's start with a moratorium on data centers. Give us that moment to govern artificial intelligence,” she said at a debate in October. Chan also played a key role in passing San Francisco's moratorium in early October.

A University of Southern California poll showed that as of mid-October, Wiener led Chan 47% to 41%.

Responding to public backlash

“Right now, opposition to data centers is a more unifying issue for the American public than almost any other,” said Shum Preston, a political analyst in San Francisco. He said there has so far been relatively little pushback against the moratoriums at local hearings, though there may be several reasons for that.

One is that surveys show broad public opposition to data center construction. An October CNBC poll found that 63% of registered US voters opposed building data centers within 16 kilometers of their homes.

“Data centers poll very poorly, and developers probably don't want to put their supervisor friends in a bind before an election. So they may have let this slide,” Preston said. He also suggested that the short-term nature of the moratoriums could be a factor.

Some Bay Area cities, including San Francisco, Brisbane and Oakland, have paused data center construction for 45 days, with an option to extend afterward. According to Preston, opponents of the moratoriums “will speak up more forcefully when” the 45 days end, by which time the midterm campaign season will have quieted down. “That's when the hearings will get more heated,” he said.

Are 45 days enough?

Another obstacle to the moratoriums is the lack of transparency in data center construction. Supervisor Shamann Walton, who sponsored San Francisco's moratorium ordinance, argues that the city's definition of “data center” is outdated. Created in 2001 — long before the AI boom — the city code defines a data center as an “internet services exchange,” a definition that may no longer reflect current technology.

Walton said the outdated language makes it difficult for authorities to count how many data centers the city has. The inability to identify data centers may also hamper city officials' efforts to monitor their electricity and water consumption. “We cannot use 2001 regulations to govern 2026 technology,” he said in a statement on September 14.

Another issue is the time needed to carry out environmental reviews. Moratoriums may not allow enough time for a comprehensive review. “Forty-five days is unlikely to be enough to document and study the impacts and then draw up regulations,” said Roger Lin, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a US environmental nonprofit. He added that legal barriers restrict access to information from the data centers themselves. “Data centers often have confidentiality agreements, so even local air quality control boards may not know the impact of a data center on air quality,” Lin said.

Supporters stress economic benefits

Still, supporters of the AI industry praise the growth of data centers as evidence of a thriving sector with positive spillover effects for American communities. Anthropic, for instance, is preparing an initial public offering that could raise billions of dollars.

Critics, however, warn that the company's growth may not translate into an economic boom for the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Instead, residents worry about uneven economic growth that mainly benefits the wealthy. San Francisco already has some of the highest and fastest-rising rents in the country.

At a hearing at San Francisco City Hall, one resident vented frustration about data centers to the supervisors: “This city is increasingly less for people and more for robots and billionaires.”