Sixty-three percent of registered voters oppose an AI data center within 10 miles of home. Thirteen percent support one. Those 13 percent are either lying or already own the land.
The CNBC poll ran October 14-18. It surveyed 1,000 voters. Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies did the work.
Here is the funny part. Nearly 55 percent of MAGA supporters want companies to keep developing advanced AI. Only 29 percent would welcome a data center within 10 miles. Forty percent oppose one.
They love the future. They just want it built in someone else's county.
Among all Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, support for a nearby data center falls to 24 percent.
Trump calls AI a race with China and a national-security imperative. Soldiers in that war are apparently unwilling to host the barracks. Beijing is terrified.
Trump also posted on Truth Social that developers should compensate communities and bring their own electricity. That is a policy shift announced by a man whose party is polling at 24 percent on the topic. Bold timing. Very cutting-edge.
Voters cite electric bills, water demand, noise, land use and tax breaks. Reasonable. The Data Center Coalition says the facilities bring jobs and tax revenue. The jobs are mostly a security guard and a very loud fan.
On trust, 32 percent pick Democrats on data center expansion. Twenty-four percent pick Republicans. Twenty-seven percent picked neither, which is the only correct answer on the entire survey.
Retail traders will read this and buy more AI stocks. They will call it a long-term thesis. Their long-term thesis lives in a margin account and a studio apartment, 11 miles from the nearest server farm.
The poll's margin of error is 4.38 points on the data center question. Trump's margin of error is whatever his neighbors say at the zoning hearing.
Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash
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