AI, data center fears could be key in Michigan Democratic Senate primary

Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive running for the Democratic nomination in the the Aug. 4 Michigan Senate primary, sees a foundational risk in the rise of artificial intelligence. And he’s betting that fears related to the emerging technology and the data centers that power it could play a pivotal role in the race. 

“There’s literally not a conversation that I have, not a stop that I make, where data centers are AI don’t come up,” El-Sayed told CNBC. “It’s an issue that I’m hearing about everywhere, and it’s one of those issues that, as usual, D.C. has been slower to pay attention to than the rest of the country.”

El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former public health official, is part of a cadre of left-wing Democratic candidates — some of whom have made strides in New York and Colorado in recent weeks — looking to upset establishment candidates. And like many progressives, El-Sayed has staked out a position on AI and data centers more hostile to the technology than his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate with the tacit support of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The tight race is critical for Democrats if they want to flip the Senate. El-Sayed and Stevens will seek to defend the seat Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat, is vacating. The primary winner will square off against former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, in the general election. The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates the race a “toss up.”

It can also be viewed as a battle in the larger civil war roiling the Democratic Party, as progressives and moderates tussle for control. And the split between El-Sayed and Stevens on AI and data centers could be a test case for Democrats on how to message on the issue going forward.

“There are lots of people in lots of places that are going to draw lessons from the outcome of this race,” said Tyler Simko, an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. “People are going to try to infer the viability of this type of progressive argument on data centers and AI.”

While Michigan isn’t in the top-10 for the number of AI data centers — the state has 77 currently operating, according to one public database, and more in the pipeline — anti-data center sentiment appears to be building in the state. Across the country, fears of AI in general are on the rise, several recent polling has found.

El-Sayed says he has a plan.

In January, he released his “terms of engagement” for data centers. El-Sayed stops short of calling for a moratorium on their development, as some of his backers, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have recently done. But he vows to impose strict guardrails on their development, including job guarantees, commitments to no utilities…