Please see the below article from WH Ireland detailing their discussions on the US Mid Terms and the roll out of data centres within the US. Received this morning 05/11/2026.
The sweeping gains by the Democrats in both the House and the Senate look likely to slow down, if not derail, the roll out of Data Centres in a number of highly significant States.
Developers in Texas (which accounts for over one quarter of the national capacity due to come online in 2028) were already facing a suspension of approvals under Republican Governor Greg Abbott. Gina Hinojosa, elected on Tuesday as the first Democratic Governor of Texas in more than a quarter of a century, had consistently called for a moratorium during her campaign. Some 13 gigawatts of data centre capacity (enough to power around 10 million homes according to GLJ Research) is immediately exposed by Hinojosa’s victory.
Jefferies’ analyst Jonathan Petersen noted in a recent research piece that regardless of the election outcome the likelihood is tighter rules around who pays for grid infrastructure, water use and the oversight of tax incentives.
It is not just Texas. In Ohio Democrat Amy Acton defeated billionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and has called for an immediate conditional moratorium that requires developers to meet a series of requirements to be cleared for construction. Meanwhile Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, elected as Governor of Georgia, called for a moratorium on new construction of data centre sites during her campaign. Georgia has historically encouraged data centre development and is the third largest state in terms of data centre development.
Down the line this may have significant implications for the Asian tech trio of TSMC, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and their supply chains although one suspects that data centre developments elsewhere (India, China, ASEAN to name just a few) will offset any decline in US data centre demand.
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Alex Clare
05/11/2026