Data center opposition is scrambling party lines from Florida to New York

Hernando County, Florida unanimously approved a yearlong moratorium on data center construction after protests organized by Humans First, a conservative grassroots group fighting AI buildouts. The opposition is bipartisan, turning Trump voters into activists over left-coded concerns like groundwater contamination and forever chemicals. Data centers have become the physical object the public can aim its AI anxiety at, and community organizing has proved capable of stopping them. One data center CEO argued in a Fortune op-ed that blanket bans are the wrong answer and developers should pay for their own substations and transmission rather than passing costs to ratepayers: "build like you intend to live next door, not like you're clearing a permit."

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