Report · Jun 9, 2026
Climate Change in the American Mind: Politics & Policy, Spring 2026
By Anthony Leiserowitz, John Kotcher, Seth Rosenthal, Emily Goddard, Joshua Ettinger, Teresa Myers, Jennifer Carman, Marija Verner, Julia Fine, Emily Richards, Matthew Goldberg, Jennifer Marlon and Edward Maibach
Filed under: Policy & Politics
7. Special Section: Data Centers
7.1 A majority of registered voters oppose building data centers in their local area.
A majority of registered voters (58%) oppose building data centers in their local area (while only 15% support doing so; refer to data tables, p. 81). About three-quarters of liberal Democrats oppose building data centers locally (74%) while only 9% support doing so. Half or more of moderate/conservative Democrats (57%) oppose building data centers locally (while 11% support it), as do 53% of conservative Republicans (22% support). Fewer liberal/moderate Republicans (44%) oppose building data centers locally, but only 15% support it, while 42% neither support nor oppose it.
![This dot plot shows the percentage of registered voters, broken down by political party and ideology, who strongly or somewhat oppose building data centers (large computing facilities for artificial intelligence [AI] systems) in their local area. A majority of registered voters oppose building data centers in their local area. Data: Climate Change in the American Mind, Politics & Policy, Spring 2026. Refer to the data tables in Appendix 1 of the report for all percentages.](https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/app/uploads/2026/06/climate-change-american-mind-politics-policy-spring-2026-7.1-scaled.png)
7.2 Across political lines, a majority of registered voters think their electricity bills would increase if a data center opened in their local area.
One potential contributing factor to the opposition to data centers noted in Section 7.1 is that six in ten registered voters (60%) think that if a data center opened in their local area, their electricity bills would increase either “a lot” (40%) or “a little” (19%). This includes two-thirds of liberal Democrats (67%), a majority of conservative Republicans (59%), and about half of moderate/conservative Democrats (56%), and liberal/moderate Republicans (54%). By contrast, only 5% of registered voters think their electricity bills would decrease either “a lot” (1%), or “a little” (4%).
7.3 About three-quarters of registered voters support requiring new data centers to offset their electricity use by installing rooftop solar on, and weatherizing, local homes.
About three-quarters of registered voters (74%) “strongly” or “somewhat” support a proposal requiring new data centers to offset their electricity use by installing rooftop solar on, and weatherizing, local homes. Support crosses political lines, including majorities of liberal Democrats (88%), moderate/conservative Democrats (77%), liberal/moderate Republicans (71%), and conservative Republicans (63%) who support the proposal. By contrast, one quarter of registered voters (25%) either “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose this proposal.
