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Red counties with data center projects swung away from GOP in midterms, analysis finds

FIRST ON FOX: A new analysis from a conservative AI safety group found that deep-red counties with large data centers or proposed projects shifted further toward Democrats in last week's midterm elections than comparable counties without such projects.

✦ Extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting•From 1 source•1 min read•Updated November 10, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC
Key points
  • Humans First’s analysis, obtained by Fox News Digital, examined public election returns and data-center project records in 1,540 counties across 16 states.
  • The memo used several comparisons to measure what the group describes as a "data center penalty." Across all counties examined, those hosting large data centers shifted an additional 2.2 percentage points toward Democrats compared with non-host counties in the same states.
  • Among deep-red counties with projects still in the proposal stage, the gap was 1.1 percentage points after accounting for past voting patterns, rural or urban status, population size, racial and ethnic makeup and recent voting trends.

Restricting the analysis to deep-red counties — those President Donald Trump won by at least 20 points in 2024 — produced a 2.1-point raw gap between counties hosting large data centers and comparable counties without projects.

Additional details
  • The memo found that Republican vote totals fell an additional 1.1% in deep-red host counties compared with comparable counties without large data centers, while Democratic vote totals showed no significant change.
  • A data center involves all of those things, which is why I believe these counties moved away from Republicans," she continued.
  • Separately, voters favored restrictions on data center development or rejected measures supporting such projects in 46 of 47 local data center ballot measures in 2026, according to Ballotpedia.
  • Those nine counties shifted 2.2 points further toward Democrats after the analysis accounted for its controls, compared with a 0.75-point shift among deep-red host counties overall.
  • The findings do not establish whether the group's visits influenced voting behavior or whether those counties already had stronger opposition to data center development.

How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →

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Fox NewsNovember 10, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC →

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