After President Donald Trump helped nominate controversial Texas AG Ken Paxton as the Republican to run against Democrat James Talarico for Texas’ pivotal Senate seat, critics say the Lone Star state may now be in serious play.
But it appears an unexpected new issue has reared its head to further complicate an easy Republican senatorial win in this red state — and nobody saw it coming.
“My entire community is going to break rank. Everybody, all of us. We've had enough,” Texas Republican voter Cheryl Shadden told MS NOW reporter Josh Einiger. “… Red or blue. If you vote against data centers, we vote for you.”
A lifelong conservative, Shadden is so angry she refuses to vote for Trump backed attorney general ken Paxton, Einiger reports. Instead, she's all in for Talarico to flip a seat controlled by Republicans since 1993.
“You're willing at this point to forego basically every conservative issue and let the Senate fall into the hands of Democrats, if that's what it takes to kill data centers?” asked Einiger
“Yep,” said Shadden, who describes living one quarter mile from her neighboring data center as “like living on the edge of Niagara Falls. Or you're on a runway next to a jet that's taking off. But this jet doesn't take off.”
Last year, MS NOW reports Trump signed an executive order reducing regulation of data center construction across the country. And Texas is now second to Virginia as the state with the most — almost 500 already in business and roaring away with nearly 150 more under construction.
This leaves outraged neighbors to deal with skyrocketing utility bills as the centers overwhelm power grids and guzzle groundwater to feed their massive cooling systems inside.
But then there’s the blast of sound as an army of massive fans roar 24/7 to keep the computers inside cool.
“I voted for Trump at the time. It seemed to be the right thing to do,” complained another Texas resident dealing with the noise and high bills a data center brought.
Meanwhile other longtime Republicans are now canvasing for Democrats like Clayton Tucker, who's running for agriculture commissioner, after GOP commissioners rubber-stamped center development.
“This is just Texans standing up for Texans,” Clayton told Einiger. “It's not surrendering our Texas, our way of life, our water, our power, or anything to these few corporations to make all the money in the world.”
Einiger asked a third Trump voter if she thought the data center issue was “going to flip the Texas senate seat.”
“Absolutely, yes. One-hundred percent,” she answered.
