Most Americans Oppose Building Data Centers. Trump Calls Objecting Communities "Backwards and Poor."

Polling shows widespread opposition to new data center construction across the United States. A Gallup poll found that seven out of ten Americans opposed building data centers in their areas. A separate poll found 59% of people opposed to a data center within 10 miles of their homes. More than 1,500 new data centers have been proposed nationwide.

Communities opposing data center projects commonly point to a similar set of concerns: rising local electricity bills as utilities expand capacity to meet round-the-clock demand, constant noise from cooling systems and generators, heavy water use for cooling that draws on the same public supply residents rely on, loss of farmland or housing sites to new construction, tax breaks that shift costs onto other local taxpayers, and relatively few permanent jobs once construction is complete.

The electricity concern in particular is already showing up in bills: residential prices jumped 7.1 percent in 2025 — more than double the inflation rate, and over 20 percent in some states — largely due to the rise in data centers. Those bills are stacking on top of already-rising grocery and gas prices, putting an added strain on American families' budgets.

Trump's response

Trump has addressed the opposition directly on more than one occasion. At a White House event with technology executives, he said that any mayor or governor should want data centers in their community because of the income they generate.

On Truth Social, he wrote that the only reason communities should not want data centers is if they want to end up "backwards and poor," and that killing what he called the "Golden Goose" would leave communities to blame themselves, adding that China "could not be happier" with the anti-data-center movement.