Georgia voters oppose data centers 47%

Georgia’s data-center boom is now a campaign issue in Georgia, with local opposition spilling into the 2026 governor’s race and down-ballot contests. (politico.com) POLITICO reported on April 26 that voters in places including Forsyth, Jackson and Newnan are pressing candidates over projects tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure. The fight cuts across party lines in a swing state both parties need. (politico.com) The clearest statewide measure came in an Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey released March 5: 47% of 1,000 Georgians opposed data centers in or near their community, while 31% supported them. Emerson’s December 2025 national survey found 42% opposition and 33% support, putting Georgia five points more opposed than the country overall. (wsav.com) A data center is a warehouse-sized building packed with computers that store and process information. The newest campuses are being built for cloud services and artificial intelligence, and they need huge amounts of electricity, land and cooling equipment. (insideclimatenews.org) (psc.ga.gov) That scale is visible in Coweta County, where commissioners voted 3-2 on April 8 to approve Project Sail, a $1.7 billion campus on 829 acres with nine buildings totaling 4.34 million square feet. FOX 5 Atlanta reported the site could draw 900 megawatts of power, near the output of a modern nuclear reactor. (fox5atlanta.com) In Muscogee County, residents are fighting Project Ruby, a proposed hyperscale campus on roughly 900 acres of forest and creek land near Columbus. Inside Climate News reported on April 13 that early plans call for four buildings, a new substation and on-site transformers, while the end user has not been publicly named. (insideclimatenews.org) The state response has been uneven. The Georgia Public Service Commission approved a rule on January 23, 2025 allowing Georgia Power to charge new customers using more than 100 megawatts under special terms meant to prevent cost shifting to existing customers. (psc.ga.gov) Lawmakers tried to write some of that protection into statute this year. House Bill 1063 passed the Georgia House 159-5 on February 17, but the General Assembly page shows the bill was only read and referred in the Senate on February 18. (legis.ga.gov) (capitol-beat.org) The broader push stalled when the legislative session ended April 2 without new statewide limits on data-center growth. The Associated Press reported that activists in places such as Newnan said lawmakers left communities to absorb fights over power costs, tax breaks and land use. (usnews.com) Supporters still argue the projects expand the tax base and bring jobs. Project Sail’s backers say the campus could help fund a new high school, while opponents have focused on traffic, school proximity, noise, water pollution and the loss of rural land. (fox5atlanta.com) (cowetaprojectsail.com) What changed in Georgia is not that data centers arrived, but that they became visible enough to move votes. In a state packed with new projects, the argument is no longer only about servers and tax incentives; it is about who gets to decide what gets built next door. (politico.com)