Trump says U.S. communities opposing AI data centers could end up ‘backwards and poor’

“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

“If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,” the president said.

“The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!”

Trump’s post comes nearly a week after a memo issued by the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned, “If voters’ perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio.”

The NRSC said that private polling in that state shows Republican Sen. Jon Husted in a “dead heat” with Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown in the special election to fill the remainder of the term for the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance.

In May, Gallup said a survey conducted in March found that “seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed.”

On Aug. 28, Wolfe Research issued a report that said, “In nearly every meeting with investors over the past month or so, we’ve been asked: How is the voter backlash against data centers going to play out?”

“The pace and scale of the backlash is genuinely breathtaking — we’ve never seen anything like it,” the report said. “We’ve seen 60-point drops in net support for local data center (DC) construction across party lines over the past 12 months.”

The upcoming midterm elections will determine which party controls both chambers of Congress. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, and a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

AI data centers house computing equipment used to train and operate artificial intelligence models developed by companies including OpenAI and Anthropic.

The rush to build data centers has sparked a backlash in communities across the U.S., with opponents raising concerns about electricity costs, power demand, water use and other local impacts.

In its Aug. 18 memo, the NRSC warned that “the current perception is negative” among Americans about data centers as it detailed how the issue is affecting the race for the Senate in Ohio.

“Ohio is one of the leaders in building these AI factories,” the NRSC said. “Brown has made his opposition to them the centerpiece of his campaign against Husted. Brown is using it because it works.”

“More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck. If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one.”