States Newsroom: Data Center Backlash Reaches Midterms as Allegheny County Bans Large Facilities on County Land

States Newsroom reported on October 26, 2026 that Allegheny County, Pennsylvania’s council voted unanimously in September to ban the development of data centers over 25 megawatts on any county-owned land, as residents of a small southwestern Pennsylvania town face a 47-acre data center facility planned to handle up to 240 megawatts. The piece sets the local fights against national polling: Sixty-three percent of American adults say they don’t want a data center built in their community, according to a late August YouGov and Economist poll, and a CNN poll in mid-September found nearly two-thirds of registered voters said AI and data center development will be an extremely or very important factor in their vote.

A Democratic-backed political action committee poured $2.5 million in late October into ads depicting Republican Sens. Roger Marshall and John Husted as friends of the tech industry, and Trump wrote on Truth Social that data centers “are mandated by me to make their own electricity.” The county vote is reported secondhand; the resolution text was not fetched.