Over the last year, the debate around artificial intelligence and data centers has moved from a concern largely confined to industry circles to one of the hottest infrastructure and political issues heading into the midterm elections.

There has been no shortage of opinion on the topic. What has been harder to find are clear, useful data points. The resistance is not always about noise ordinances or water tables. For many communities, a data center is the physical embodiment of a tech economy they feel left behind by. That context shapes every local zoning or planning hearing, every local council vote, every state bill. It is also the reason that approvals require more than good permits and clean environmental filings.

That is where Hawthorn Intelligence comes in.

Starting today and continuing through the election cycle, our goal is to provide regular data points from our work tracking these issues nationwide. Our team is tracking these matters across nearly every state, giving us a ground-level view of how this debate is evolving in real time. We hope this regular dispatch helps inform investment decisions, shape external communications, and identify opportunities for early engagement to help projects move forward.

Here are three data points regarding the data center debate that caught our Hawthorn Intelligence team’s eye this week:

At current count, our team has identified more than 200 data center opposition groups across 49 states. Michigan and Ohio have the highest number of opposition cases, with 83% of tracked cases in Ohio resulting in project failure.

While energy and water use have dominated much of the public conversation, noise-related protests have resulted in a higher rate of project failure than other issues, with 67% of decided cases resulting in a denial, delay, or withdrawal. By comparison, water-related challenges have resulted a denial, delay, or withdrawal 55.8% of the time, while environmental challenges have resulted in a denial, delay, or withdrawal 48.1% of the time. This likely reflects the clearer legal standing provided by local noise ordinances compared with broader water or environmental standards. Our team has also identified a set of messaging approaches and community engagement strategies that have measurably improved outcomes in noise-contested cases. We are happy to walk through what we are seeing work.

Looking ahead, state legislatures are quickly becoming the next battleground. Our team tracks introduced legislation touching data center development, including bills that would establish statewide permitting authority, preempt local zoning restrictions, or set consistent permitting standards. Introduced bills in our legislative tracker grew from 1 in 2024 to 20 in 2025, to 153 through early June 2026, a 7.6x year-over-year increase. We are closely watching which states are moving fastest and which bills are rising to become defining issues in incumbent legislators’ and state public utility commission elections.

We look forward to your thoughts and questions and would welcome a conversation about the issues you and your team are seeing. If you are looking for a different set of intelligence, curious about what we are tracking, or facing challenges in a specific market, we would welcome the chance to talk.

Sincerely,

Jefferson Freeman
Vice President, Research & Intelligence