Voters Reject Data Centers But Not Because of Electricity Prices
A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that 65% of New Jersey voters oppose making it easier to build data centers, while only 25% support it. The poll concluded that opposition is driven more by concerns about artificial intelligence and big tech companies than by electricity prices.
A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found broad opposition among New Jersey voters to streamlining data-center construction. Only 25% favored making it easier to build data centers, compared with 65% who opposed the idea; support for housing and new power-generation facilities was substantially higher.
Poll director Dan Cassino said experimental survey results showed that priming voters to think about AI or big-tech regulation increased opposition to data centers, while priming them to think about higher electricity bills had no statistically significant effect. The findings suggest that developers may not overcome public resistance simply by building additional power-generation capacity.