Residents in Maine are pressing Senate candidates over the spread of AI data centers, and the dispute has become one of the most volatile issues in the state's midterm races. At the final debate, an audience member interrupted Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, to say he was terrified that data centers were damaging the climate and poisoning water. Collins dismissed the outburst and linked the man to her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, but the concern has not faded before voters go to the polls.
The dispute follows the Legislature's passage in April of what would have been the first statewide moratorium on large data centers in the country. Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the bill 10 days later. Since then, towns across Maine have adopted temporary moratoriums or placed data center questions on November ballots. In a September poll of Mainers by UMass Lowell and YouGov, 76 percent of respondents said they opposed a data center in their community, with 58 percent strongly opposed.
The Senate race is projected to be the most expensive per capita in US history, with Democrats spending an estimated $81 million and Republicans $114 million. Much of that money has come from the data center and AI industry that Mainers have been organizing against. The outcome will help decide which party controls the Senate and will shape federal data center and AI policy nationwide.
Maine has become a target for developers because land and power are scarce in cities while the state offers cheap land, vacant industrial buildings and water from its rivers and waterways. Tech companies and private equity firms tied to data centers and AI have put millions into the midterms to win over skeptical residents. Molly White, the researcher and software engineer behind Tech Influence Watch, said voters link data centers to higher utility costs and are weighing that against record heating oil prices this fall. She said the industry's midterm playbook resembles the one cryptocurrency interests used in 2024.
Developers often promise long-term jobs, but economic research indicates data centers create almost no net employment after construction. Mark Brewer, who chairs the political science department at the University of Maine, said the state's history with extractive industries makes residents cautious, and that data centers do not employ workers the way a paper mill running three shifts of 1,000 people did. Nicholas Jacobs, director of the Public Policy Lab at Colby College, said rural residents worry about opaque ownership, limited long-term employment and wealth leaving their communities.
Collins, the 73-year-old Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has largely backed data centers and AI while saying projects should be evaluated individually. She secured $6.2 million in federal funding for a high-performance computing hub data center in central Maine. According to White's donation tracker, Collins has received $325,644 from AI and crypto donors, and nearly 100 billionaires have given to her reelection bid. Her individual donors include Alex Karp of Palantir and Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz.
The Republican Senate Leadership Fund has spent nearly $42 million on ads in Maine. Elon Musk gave $158 million to the fund this summer and has spent around $450 million of his own money supporting Republicans in the midterms; his America PAC has spent about $2.1 million in Maine. Pine Tree Results PAC, to which Collins and her husband have personal ties, has put $29.1 million into the race, including $2 million this year from Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman. An FEC report flagged by the Maine Newsroom shows Musk's corporate SpaceX PAC gave $55,000 to Collins' Victory Committee in August and $50,000 to Pine Tree Results PAC. Jackson filed his FEC paperwork only recently, and it shows no obvious data center, AI or Big Tech ties.
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