Inside Newsreel’s Midterm Madness: How AI and Data Centers Crashed the Election Conversation

On a brisk Thursday evening in Brooklyn, the scene inside a dimly blue-lit warehouse was already buzzing with energy. Stepping through the doors in neon yellow heels and a floral mini dress—a quintessential New York outfit that felt entirely appropriate for the setting—the evening brought together a familiar mix of media professionals, techies, and policy advocates. The occasion was "Midterm Madness," an event hosted by Newsreel, the media company founded by former Forbes and Newsweek reporter Jack Brewster, designed to get politically engaged urbanites talking face-to-face about the upcoming midterm elections just days away.

The lineup for the evening was undeniably heavy-hitting. Kenneth Schlenker, co-founder of the focus app Opal, sat down for a fireside chat centered on "the state of attention," while Aryan Banjan, the creator of the campaign management software Barza, delivered a detailed midterm forecast. Meanwhile, my own evening involved moderating a panel discussion focused squarely on the physical infrastructure of the modern internet: data centers.

Brewster noted that the overarching goal of the gathering was simple: to encourage people to put their phones away and talk directly to each other about the political landscape with the election just five days out. Yet, as the night progressed, a distinct gravitational pull began to dominate nearly every conversation in the room, shifting the focus away from traditional talking points and toward artificial intelligence, massive data centers, and a rapidly growing backlash against the technocracy.

The Growing Chasm Between Tech and the Public

Lately, spending days immersed in the tech industry creates a distinct bubble. As a tech reporter, my daily routine involves speaking with individuals who see the immense potential and benefits of artificial intelligence. They are relentlessly ambitious in building it and fiercely optimistic about its success. But stepping outside that insular ecosystem often serves as a stark reminder of how jarring, and even ugly, the rapid expansion of the tech sector looks to the rest of the world.

Outside the bubble of Silicon Valley and urban tech hubs, data centers and AI have evolved into intensely contentious ballot-box issues. Far from being abstract concepts debated in venture capital boardrooms, these technological juggernauts have grown contentious enough to sway local and regional midterm races. A recent report from Data Center Watch highlights the scale of this friction, revealing that nearly $200 billion worth of data center projects were delayed, stalled, or blocked in the first half of 2026 alone due to mounting political and community opposition.

States across the country—including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, New York, and Virginia—are increasingly considering stricter guardrails, zoning limits, and transparency requirements around the rapid, often opaque development of these facilities. Virginia, already widely recognized as the "data center capital of the world," is facing hundreds of proposed new sites, triggering intense localized pushback that is spilling directly into electoral politics.

Setting the Tone: Accountability and Congressional Scrutiny

The evening’s formal discussions kicked off with a fireside chat featuring New York City Council member Chi Ossé, which immediately set a candid tone for the night. While artificial intelligence came up only near the end of the conversation, Ossé made it clear that he rarely uses the technology himself. Rather than adopting a purely pro- or anti-tech stance, his primary emphasis was on corporate accountability and economic fairness, including a call for trillionaires like Elon Musk to face heavier taxation.

Describing himself as a "law and order" democratic socialist, Ossé pointedly addressed the grandiose claims frequently made by tech executives regarding advanced artificial intelligence. When corporate leaders openly discuss developing technologies that carry existential risks capable of disrupting significant portions of human civilization, Ossé argued, they should be formally called to testify in front of Congress rather than operating with perceived impunity.

The Data Center Panel and Community Pushback

Following Ossé’s fireside chat, it was time for the panel I moderated, which brought together Maia Woluchem, a technology and human rights researcher, and Hilary Flint, an environmental and public health advocate, to unpack the realities of data center expansion.

Taking the stage, I decided to test the room’s temperature directly. Opening the session with a straightforward question—“Who here is pro-AI data center?”—I was promptly met with a chorus of boos from the crowd.

The ensuing conversation traversed a wide range of complex emotions and grievances. Chief among them is the growing public anger over major technology companies allegedly cutting secret deals with local municipal officials to push through billion-dollar data centers under the radar. In many jurisdictions, outdated zoning laws and non-disclosure agreements make it nearly impossible for residents to understand what is being constructed in their backyards until it is far too late to mount an effective protest.

At the same time, everyday citizens are grappling with punishing costs of living, striving to hold onto whatever remnants of the American Dream remain within reach. Against this backdrop, hearing tech leaders casually discuss scenarios where AI replaces human workers—or even humanity itself—creates a deep sense of alienation. Residents feel they have entirely lost control over the democratic and physical shaping of their local communities, leaving them deeply anxious about the immediate environmental and health risks posed by massive, power-hungry server farms.

During the panel, Woluchem and Flint emphasized that these data centers have become the physical manifestation of a broader public fear and anger directed at the tech class and the breakneck speed of modern technological disruption. When I brought up the argument that some rural or economically depressed communities have occasionally seen short-term economic benefits from data center developments, Flint offered a sharp counter-perspective.

"What is a life worth?" Flint asked the audience, explaining why local residents continue to organize fierce protests despite corporate promises. People fight back, she noted, because they "value their lives a little bit more than a temporary check."

Labor, Prosperity, and the Lack of Consent

The subsequent panel featured NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon, political strategist Morris Katz—who previously worked on Zohran Mamdani’s campaign—and Vox’s Astead Herndon. While the session was nominally billed as a discussion on the future of the Democratic Party, the gravitational pull of the data center debate quickly took over the conversation once again.

Ungar-Sargon pointed out a complex political paradox: certain labor unions actively support data sector construction projects because of the immediate influx of high-paying construction jobs they promise. However, independent economic studies consistently show that while data centers create a surge of temporary jobs during their development phase, the permanent operational workforce required once they open is remarkably small.

Drawing a parallel to industrial history, Ungar-Sargon noted how previous generations viewed heavy manufacturing. "There used to be a lot of pride in a community in the Rust Belt about very ugly, enormous buildings in their communities because everybody worked there," she said, nodding to an earlier comment about data centers being visual eyesores. "And they knew that building represented prosperity for themselves, stability for their children, and a future and a piece of the American dream."

Herndon chimed in by referencing how political figures like Vivek Ramaswamy had faced similar hostile receptions when attempting to address rust-belt economic anxieties in states like Ohio. "I just want to reinforce the lack of consent happening," Herndon said. "Because that’s true among Republicans in those places, and I’ve watched it."

Katz offered an even more skeptical view of corporate involvement in working-class communities. "It’s the same people who have taken so many union jobs away," Katz argued, pointing to decades of deindustrialization and economic shifts. "The same institutional powers that have robbed labor and working people of jobs and profit. Now coming back to essentially finish the job and take whatever scraps remain."

Along the perimeter of the warehouse walls, handwritten sticky notes left by attendees offered a glimpse into broader public anxieties. Responding to posted prompts such as "Will we ever be able to get Big Money out of politics?", one blunt note captured the prevailing mood of the room: "God, I hope so."

The Shift from Urban Hubs to the Ballot Box

As the panels concluded, attendees rushed toward the bar while heavy techno music began to pulse through the speakers. Small groups formed across the floor, continuing intense private debates centered on artificial intelligence and data center infrastructure.

Catching up with Jack Brewster, I asked if he had anticipated how thoroughly the evening’s discourse would be consumed by the intersection of AI and local politics.

"It came up in every conversation on stage, and it was the second most common topic in the questions people sent us when they RSVP’d," Brewster said, noting the irony of the trend manifesting so strongly even in New York City, where data centers are largely hidden from view. "AI has become an election issue for regular voters. In rural communities, the backlash is about feeling replaced. In a place like Brooklyn, it’s more about who gets rich from it."

Before heading out into the night, I moved through the crowd to ask attendees about the most striking developments they had witnessed in the tech world over the past year. Two different tech founders pointed to the rapid rise of the AI assistant startup Instinct, while a non-tech attendee immediately named OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Another non-tech participant highlighted the cultural saturation of deepfakes and generative AI art, noting that synthetic imagery is increasingly beginning to signal cheapness and lack of authenticity. This cultural fatigue may help explain why luxury brands are deliberately moving in the opposite direction; Prada’s recent holiday campaign relies entirely on hand-drawn illustrations as an explicit anti-AI luxury strategy, while Hermès has increasingly spotlighted traditional, handmade artisan work across its social media channels.

On my way toward the exit, I spoke with a software engineer who shared an anecdote about a friend who painted her nails orange for Halloween, only to be repeatedly asked if the manicure was a deliberate tribute to the Anthropic IPO. I confessed that I had once worn a burnt orange dress and briefly fancied myself a walking representation of the Claude logo.

Our conversation then shifted to the geography of infrastructure, with the engineer mentioning that massive data centers are now beginning to pop up in her Southern California hometown. Hearing her account prompted a sudden, sobering thought about what it would feel like to see one materialize in my own neighborhood. She described growing up in a tight-knit Chinese immigrant community where residents have started posting yard signs featuring imagery of dragons symbolically choking a data center—signs that have since had to be translated into multiple languages to accommodate the broader community’s unified resistance.