This Democratic Candidate Is Trying to Leverage Data Center Backlash

An insurgent Senate candidate in Michigan is hoping that burgeoning backlash against massive data-center development projects will help propel him to victory this year.

Abdul El-Sayed, who is running to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters, released a document Thursday laying out a series of demands for new data center developments in the state that he hopes can serve as the basis for new legislation should he be elected.

El-Sayed says he also hopes to help voters navigate local government negotiations and mobilize those discontented with the rising utility prices linked with data centers. He is one of several progressive Democrats running in this year’s midterm elections who have aligned themselves with the growing opposition to the development of new data centers.

“The problem is that too often — and this has been my big structural critique of the Democratic Party — Democrats are bought off by the same corporations that are buying off Republicans, and so they conveniently avoid talking about issues that arise in local communities,” El-Sayed told NOTUS.

These facilities require a significant amount of electricity from local electricity grids, and the increase in new development has coincided with skyrocketing energy prices across the country. In the last year, opposition to these projects grew significantly, resulting in billions of dollars in investments blocked at the local level, according to Data Center Watch.

Democratic Govs. Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won in Virginia and New Jersey last year in part by condemning the rising cost of utilities.

El-Sayed is running a primary against Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. Both candidates have more experience in government and Democratic politics, though El-Sayed thinks this issue could give him an edge.

When asked by NOTUS whether focusing on data centers will help him differentiate himself from other candidates, El-Sayed said, “Yes, but that’s not the reason to do it.”

“There’s a lot of information, a lot of fear, a lot of frustration and a complete lack of transparency on the part of a lot of the corporations involved with this. And my job is to create clarity for people and to help to explain what’s happening, and how communities can protect themselves,” he said.

His eight-point document lays out demands that community organizers should put forward, such as job guarantees, commitments from utility companies not to raise rates and deals with data center developers to lower water-usage requirements. El-Sayed said these should serve as a framework for local communities in Michigan to negotiate new data center proposals and as a preview of the legislation he’d like to sponsor if he gets to the Senate.

Data centers are used by technology giants like Amazon, Google and Meta to store data. Increasingly they are used to train artificial intelligence, which demands a lot of processing power and energy. These companies have plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new data centers by the end of this year.

For El-Sayed, the fact that Democrats often receive donations from corporate donors benefiting from the data center boom prevents his party from meaningfully engaging with this issue.

“Democrats don’t lead often because they can’t actually speak to the issues on the ground because they’re bought off by the corporations that are creating those exact issues on the ground,” he said.