New national polling on data center development, paired with recent Alabama results, suggests public skepticism is growing while many voters remain undecided or willing to consider the benefits of individual projects.
A July polling newsletter from J.L. Partners found 43% of registered voters believe there are already too many artificial intelligence data centers in the United States, up from 35% in January.
Only 4% said the country has too few data centers. However, 23% were unsure, 12% said they would not mind additional development and 17% believed the country currently has about the right number but did not want more built.
J.L. Partners argued that the results leave a substantial share of the electorate open to persuasion, even as the number of voters opposed to data center growth continues to rise.
The poll also tested whether President Donald Trump’s support for data center development could shift public opinion.
After respondents were told Trump has backed data centers as a source of jobs and local economic growth, support for having one built nearby increased from 23% to 27%. Opposition declined by five percentage points.
The movement occurred across the overall electorate, not only among Republican voters, according to the firm. J.L. Partners said Trump’s support alone would not overcome public opposition but could help developers in Republican-leaning states.
The polling firm also found little statistical relationship between a voter’s general opinion of artificial intelligence and whether that person would support a data center in the local community.
Instead, voters appeared more focused on the direct local effects of individual projects, including employment, tax revenue, infrastructure improvements and broader community impacts.
Polling commissioned by Alabama Daily News and Gray Television and conducted by Cygnal found a similarly unsettled electorate among likely Alabama Republican primary voters.
Among 500 respondents, 22% viewed data centers as good for the state, while 25% viewed them as bad. The largest group, 37%, said data centers brought a mixture of benefits and drawbacks, while another 16% were unsure.
The Cygnal survey was conducted April 29 and 30 using online-panel and text-to-web responses from known registered voters. The results were weighted to reflect the likely 2026 Republican primary electorate and carried a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.
Taken together, the surveys indicate that data center development faces meaningful skepticism, but much of the electorate remains undecided or willing to weigh the economic and community benefits of individual projects.
Sawyer Knowles is a state and political reporter for Yellowhammer News. You may contact him at [email protected].
