President Donald Trump on Monday took to Truth Social to declare that communities resisting data center construction will ultimately become "backward and impoverished." With midterm elections approaching, this statement signals his open endorsement of the politically contentious industry. In his post, Trump added, "If we kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, we have only ourselves to blame."

According to Axios, last week the Republican Senatorial Committee issued a warning that Democrats are leveraging voter opposition to data centers to target a sitting senator in Ohio with campaign attacks. The intense backlash from constituents has turned data center development into a thorny issue for politicians.

An analysis by The Information of thousands of legal documents and local news reports reveals that by early August, more than 500 active data center construction bans were already in effect across the United States.