Democrats In Four Key Governor Races Want To Pause Data Centers, And Some Republicans Agree

Democrats from Florida to Iowa are running on data center crackdowns ahead of Nov. 3, and some Republicans have proposed pauses of their own.

Democratic nominees for governor in Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas have called for moratoriums, according to NewsNation and CBS News. Republican candidates in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas have proposed or ordered pauses — while the Democratic nominees in Minnesota and Wisconsin have stopped short.

Dan Diorio, executive vice president of state policy and government affairs at the Data Center Coalition, an industry group, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that states should write rules with the industry rather than block it.

“Unfortunately, a data center moratorium would send a signal that the state is closed for business, both for data centers and for other significant economic development projects,” Diorio said.

University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said in a statement to the DCNF that data centers have shown up in some of Georgia Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms’ ads.

“I expect that data centers have become an issue in most jurisdictions,” Bullock said. “Power bills were decisive in the defeat of 2 GOP PSC [Public Service Commission] incumbents in 2025.”

Like the coalition, American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac opposed moratoriums in a statement to the DCNF.

“A statewide moratorium sends a clear message to businesses looking to invest billions of dollars, create jobs, and expand the tax base: take your prosperity somewhere else,” Isaac said.

“The solution to rising electricity demand is more electricity supply, not government-imposed limits on prosperity,” he added.