Trump AI push faces voter backlash over data centers: CNBC survey

President Donald Trump has cast America’s artificial intelligence race with China as a national-security imperative, pushing faster development of the technology and an immense buildout of the data centers and power infrastructure needed to fuel it.

But the new CNBC All-America Economic Survey reveals a growing political tension beneath that agenda: Republican voters broadly support the push for AI development, but many oppose building the sprawling infrastructure needed to power it in their own backyards.

Nearly 55% of MAGA supporters want companies to keep developing advanced AI while Congress works on regulations, versus 27% who favor a pause. But only 29% would support a data center within 10 miles of their home, while 40% oppose one. Among all Republicans and Republican-leaning voters — not just those who identify themselves with the MAGA movement — those who say they would support a data center near their home falls to 24%.

Across the electorate, 63% don’t want a nearby AI data center and just 13% support one. Democrats lead the opposition: 80% oppose nearby facilities while just 4% support them.

That resistance is increasingly forcing Trump and vulnerable Republicans who once championed data centers to recalibrate as they head into a bleak midterm election environment for the party.

“Many people are annoyed by these data centers,” said Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma and co-founder of Public First Action PAC, an AI-industry-backed political group pushing for stronger regulation and safeguards. “People are also strongly insistent upon reasonable guardrails of AI, and that’s going to be hard to beat.”

The CNBC survey of 1,000 registered voters nationwide was conducted Oct. 14-18 by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The data-center proximity question was asked of a half-sample of roughly 500 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.

Read the full survey results here.

The politics have shifted from the early AI boom, when Washington and Silicon Valley sold the technology as an avenue for investment, growth and American dominance.

But as the buildout accelerates, its physical costs are becoming harder to ignore. Communities are fighting data centers over spiking electric bills, soaring electricity and water demand, noise, land use and taxpayer subsidies. Coupled with job-displacement fears from AI, opponents now point to the facilities as a physical symbol of who benefits from the boom and who gets stuck with the bill.

The industry rejects that framing.

“The data center industry provides significant, tangible benefits,” said Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition, pointing to jobs, investment and tax revenue while adding that operators are committed to “paying for the energy we use.”

But when asked their top concerns if Republicans retain Congress, 18% of voters in the survey cited a failure to…