Thomas, who won re-election last week, points to local opposition against the proposed Prince William Digital Gateway, which would install more than 30 data centers along the edge of a national reserve in the state’s north. A group of homeowners has challenged the project in court, and a judge voided the zoning in August, temporarily halting construction.
“In the end, the little guy won, which rarely happens in any industry, let alone the game of the Magnificent Ten,” he says, referring to America’s biggest tech companies. “I think it united people politically in Virginia.”
Like Hubbard, Thomas says many of his constituents are concerned about how data centers will affect their power bills. “People are a lot more cost conscious,” he says. Energy bills, Thomas says, are “something that had been relatively stable for many years.” But in Virginia, the power load from data centers is helping drive up utility bills, Thomas says.
Thomas and Hubbard are both Democrats, but the Data Center Watch report emphasizes that opposition to data centers has been entirely bipartisan. And some national Republican politicians, including Senator Josh Hawley, Representative Thomas Massie and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, have begun to speak out against them.
“You need to pay close attention to your local city, county and state’s data center approvals and demand protection on your water and energy bills!!!” Green, who has criticized data center expansion for months, posted on X on Nov. 7.
Big tech companies have made few public statements so far about promoting data center projects. While some, like Meta, provide public-facing information on their data centers, others in the industry rely heavily on non-disclosure agreements when building new data centers, leaving communities with little or no information about these projects – including which tech companies may be involved.