A new statewide survey finds that a majority of Texas voters do not want a data center built in their own community, a result that lands as the state races to become the country’s largest market for the AI and crypto facilities.
In the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll, 56% of respondents said they oppose construction of a data center in their community while 29% said they support it. The survey of 1,200 self-reported registered voters carried a margin of error of plus or minus 2.83 points, according to the Texas Politics Project.
Opposition was strongest in rural areas, where 62% opposed a local data center and 22% supported one, the poll reported. The poll also showed a partisan divide: Democratic and independent voters opposed construction at 71% and 62%, respectively, while Republican voters were more closely split, with 44% opposed and 42% in favor.
To the poll’s authors, those numbers signal trouble for the industry’s backers. “What the data underlines is how much of a problem the business stakeholders that are heavily in favor of [data center development] have on their hands,” said James Henson, co-director of the poll and head of the Texas Politics Project, in remarks to the Texas Tribune.
Henson said the pushback “emerged more quickly and is more widespread than the conventional response to economic development in Texas has historically.” The survey also found 49% of respondents expect artificial intelligence to have a negative effect on the economy, against 29% who expect a positive one.
Supporters of the buildout point to a different set of figures. The industry’s roughly 29% support statewide — and the near-even split among Republican voters — reflects what developers and many state leaders describe as the economic upside: construction jobs, long-term tax revenue and Texas’s position as a national hub for the computing capacity behind artificial intelligence, an ambition Gov. Greg Abbott has embraced in branding the state an AI “epicenter.”
State officials in both parties have moved toward tighter oversight in recent months. On June 10, Abbott issued a letter to regulators backing stricter rules on the centers’ energy and water use and the repeal of a state sales-tax exemption for data centers that costs Texas more than a billion dollars a year, according to the Texas Tribune.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in March directed the Senate’s interim committees to study legislation on the facilities’ water and power consumption and on the cost of the tax break.
Henson said the combination of economic anxiety and data-center skepticism could carry into the November general election and makes legislative action likely when lawmakers convene in January. “I’m not saying this is the undoing of the Republican Party, but it is a challenge for them, and that’s why you’re seeing Gov. Abbott and others take a proactive stance on this now,” he told the Tribune.