Opposition to data center development is becoming a prominent issue in Maine’s Senate race, placing Republican incumbent Susan Collins’ support for the industry under scrutiny days before the November election. Her contest with Democrat Troy Jackson will help determine control of the Senate and influence federal policy on artificial intelligence and data center construction.
The resistance extends beyond the campaign. Maine lawmakers approved a statewide moratorium on large data centers in April, but Gov. Janet Mills vetoed it 10 days later. Municipalities have since imposed temporary bans or prepared to let voters weigh in this November. A September survey by UMass Lowell and YouGov found that 76 percent of Maine respondents opposed a data center in their community, including 58 percent who were strongly opposed.
Developers are drawn to Maine’s inexpensive land, unused industrial properties and plentiful waterways as urban locations face shortages of space and electricity. Residents, however, are questioning what those projects would mean for household expenses. Molly White, who tracks technology industry political spending through Tech Influence Watch, said voters associate data centers with higher utility bills, a concern compounded by record-high heating oil costs this fall.
Promises of lasting employment have also met skepticism. Economic research indicates that data centers generally produce virtually no net employment after construction ends. Mark Brewer, chair of the University of Maine’s political science department, said former mill communities want investment to restore infrastructure and tax revenue but remember earlier industrial booms and busts. Unlike mills that employed large workforces, he said, data centers have not delivered comparable jobs.
The Senate contest is projected to draw $81 million in Democratic spending and $114 million in Republican spending, putting it on course to become the country’s most expensive Senate race per resident. Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, has generally backed AI and data centers while calling for individual evaluation of projects. She secured $6.2 million in federal funding for a central Maine computing hub intended to support local AI and biotechnology research.
Collins’ donors include Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and venture capital investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, alongside contributors from Google, Meta and Microsoft. White’s tracker records $325,644 in donations to Collins from AI and cryptocurrency donors. The Senate Leadership Fund has spent nearly $42 million on Maine advertising, while Pine Tree Results, a super PAC with personal ties to Collins and her husband, has put $29.1 million into supporting her.
Jackson’s recently filed federal campaign records show no obvious connections to data center, AI or major technology interests, although at least four billionaires have donated. His policy position nevertheless resembles Collins’ in emphasizing conditions for development. Jackson, a former logger and state senator, has called for union jobs in data center construction and maintenance. Forbes estimated earlier in October that Collins’ household held between $300,000 and $800,000 in AI and data center investments in her husband Thomas Daffron’s name.
The spending has brought an onslaught of attack advertising. The Maine Monitor reported that $54 million had been spent or committed to negative ads by mid-October, almost entirely from outside PACs financed by technology and data center supporters. Nicholas Jacobs, director of Colby College’s Public Policy Lab, said residents face competing concerns: protecting communities from outside exploitation while securing jobs that allow their children to stay. Data centers have become a focal point for that uncertainty.
