Friend, Project Jupiter is a massive, $165 billion project by OpenAI and Oracle, artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus under construction in Doña Ana, New Mexico, it is part of the trend toward larger and larger data center facilities now termed "hyper-scale" data centers.

Controversy has surrounded the project with alleged identity fraud, severe environmental risks, and lack of government transparency. 

• NM state leaders discovered their names and official legislative emails were used to submit supportive messages without their consent.
• Local residents reported that their email addresses were used to auto-submit fake pro-project letters to the NM Environment Department.
• Area farmers fear the facility will severely deplete the region’s drought-strained water table and are using the slogan "We can't drink data".
• The Acoma Pueblo formally opposed an associated corporate entity using the "Acoma" name without permission, citing a lack of indigenous consultation and disrespect toward their cultural relationship with the land and water.
• The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center have sued Doña Ana County.

Attend Thursday July 23, to hear more details and perspective from grassroots environmental organizing groups fighting the data center and its harmful infrastructure.

If you or your community are fighting data centers, then you do not want to miss this event. If data centers have emerged as a flash point in your local elections, you will find this session informative comparative context. 

Data Centers and the Political Context 

Friend, we have been writing and sharing information about data centers for well over a year now but the Midterms primary season has made manifest realties we, and now others, have been expecting to emerge.

For example, on AI and Data Centers writ large, Tom Wheeler writes for Brookings, "Fundamentally, this is a fight about power and whether it will be exercised by democratic institutions or those that control the infrastructure of AI." And goes on to say, "Arriving from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both senators identify the emerging political question for the election and beyond: How much economic, informational, and political power should be concentrated in a small number of technology firms?"

Data Centers Are A Pocketbook Issue 

"...voters proved that data center opposition has transcended party politics. Republican voters in counties that supported President Donald Trump in 2024 by double digits, for instance, showed that even within a party that typically aligns with pro-business and anti-regulatory policies, support for data centers can be a career-ending move,” reports Story Hinckley for the Christian Science Monitor.

• What most battleground House districts have in common: Data centers, Politico
• How Data Centers Could Upend the Midterms, Newsweek

Reading these tea leaves, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ-6) declared at a recent Energy Subcommittee Markup of Eight Bills on Electricity and Pipeline Safety, “Americans across the county have expressed concern and opposition to the rampant construction of AI data centers, and Congress should take this political groundswell seriously with a data center moratorium.” 

Pallone is “the most powerful congressional Democrat with jurisdiction over energy and environment issues to support such a policy in the face of public backlash” reports Poltico.

Data Centers Are A Local Issue

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) has made data centers a primary race flashpoint across the United States. This hyper-local backlash cuts entirely across traditional party lines, uniting voters against the massive water consumption, noise pollution, and soaring residential electricity rates associated with the facilities.

• As the data center capital of the world, Virginia has seen the most intense political fallout, see: Virginia slaps data centers with big new tax — but no climate rule, and Hanover residents pressure BOS to oppose massive data center.
• In North Carolina, local data center battles directly unseated entrenched politicians.
• In Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat, data center tax incentives became a policy wedge.
• Festus, Missouri, saw voters organize a cross-partisan effort to oust four incumbent city council members who had supported a $6 billion data center proposal.
• In Maryland’s highly competitive primary races of Prince George's and Montgomery Counties, data center skepticism became a key metric for candidate vetting.
• In Minnesota 63% of respondents oppose data center proposals, making it an issue both Democratic and Republican voters agree upon.

Civic Search shows hundreds of comments on data centers or hyperscale data centers across the U.S. from recent and documented meetings.