Across the country and the political spectrum, candidates are embracing a growing backlash to artificial intelligence and the infrastructure required to power it – a resistance shaking up races from the local level to the highest national offices, a CNN analysis of campaign ads found.
More than $31 million has been spent on political ads mentioning data centers so far this year, spiking last month, when more than 8% of all campaign spending on broadcast TV went to data center or AI-related spots, according to tracking from the firm AdImpact. That’s up significantly from less than 1% of ads last year.
Those ads, which came from candidates and groups of both political parties, were united in their overwhelming criticism of data centers – more than 99% of the spending this year went to spots against AI infrastructure projects.
In Michigan, a congressional hopeful filmed an ad from a farm field he said was at risk of being replaced by “a massive data center that’ll jack up our energy bills and ruin our home values.”
In suburban Missouri, both leading GOP candidates for a county executive seat spent their entire TV ad budgets vowing to stop data centers and accusing each other of being beholden to developers.
