When Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, began her campaign last year, candidates weren’t talking about — or hearing about — data centers that power artificial intelligence.
But with barely three months until November’s contest, the perceived threat to rural life, ranchland and dwindling water supplies could become a defining issue for her long-shot challenge to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, dividing conservative rural areas that have traditionally served as a counterweight to Democrats’ urban strongholds.
The backlash to energy-guzzling server warehouses is also shaping other statewide campaigns from Arizona to Ohio to New York, and even giving Democrats a glimmer of hope in Texas, where Republicans have dominated for three decades.
“There is this little issue that I recently started hearing about that I wanted to tell you about, in case you don’t know,” Hinojosa quipped to a Democratic Party-organized crowd of about 160 seated on fold-out chairs at an Amarillo social club in Texas’ panhandle. “It’s this issue of data centers.”
The crowd booed, and she went on: “They are owned by the richest men in the world. We’re all footing the bill. There are no rules. It is the wild west of data centers.”
