Republicans Want to Disown the Data Center Monster They Created
Data centers are going to be one of the deciding issues in the 2026 midterms, and it looks like Republicans in West Virginia are waking up to the fact that they are the poster children for their own unpopular policies.
Now, I understand it when folks say “don’t make this partisan,” if, for instance, I say that the WV GOP is unilaterally pushing data centers into our backyards for Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
I get it why folks want to say “this isn’t partisan”. Partisan issues are divisive, and pretty much everyone (who isn’t on a data center payroll) is united in opposition to the way data centers are being pursued in West Virginia.
But the reality is that this is a partisan issue.
There is not a single Democrat representing the Eastern Panhandle. And all of our Republican legislators voted for the Republican governor’s bill to eliminate local control, and to create a data center czar office to do all the negotiating to sell out our backyards.
It is partisan.
There is one party that has pushed us to this point and the other party, with very few exceptions, has tried to stop or to curb the worst parts of this bill that was presented and passed by the WV GOP.
Our Republican governor is holding a $25,000/ticket fundraising retreat in Napa Valley before the elections! Those tickets are $25,000 for each individual “host.” He’s openly courting the very California billionaires to whom he is selling out our state!
And while there are some elected Republicans who *now* say they oppose HB2014 and this whole scheme, it’s a dollar short and a day late — lawmakers may *say* they oppose something, once their votes made it law.
But they should probably be judged on their actions to make the law, and not their crocodile tears that they don’t love it after they voted for it.
I also want to be clear that the leadership and lawmakers are not the voters — I believe most Republican voters rightfully oppose data centers and HB2014.
But the Republican leadership — the elected officials who actually lead the party and make decisions for the party — clearly doesn’t care. They are whole hog on this scheme to sell out WV to Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
They’ve spent months basically asserting that data centers represent a mythical “free lunch” with no economic or environmental downsides for communities that welcome these data centers. They dismissed community concerns outright and called opponents to data centers every name in the book from “Chinese communist” to “paid protester.”
But you can already see their tune changing as they realize that their votes have made them poster children for the most unpopular policy of 2026, especially among their own base.
During the 2026 interims the governor introduced some nice words about how they want regulations on data centers. Regulations that he himself and the rest of the Republican legislature could have written – but chose not to – into the law when they pushed it through in 2025.
In the three months leading up to the 2026 election, you can be sure that Republicans, who are facing difficult races (e.g. all of them in the Eastern Panhandle), are going to fall over themselves to try to convince voters that even though they voted for the law that took away our zoning – they really only believe in well-regulated data centers that will be good neighbors.
These pro-business Republicans will conveniently ignore that these data centers are profit-maximizing corporations with a single goal that comes at the expense of community, health, and safety.
Every single delegate from the Eastern Panhandle voted to take away your voice and to side with the governor and other out-of-state interests at the expense of your voice, your property rights, and your water resources.
Every. Single. Delegate.
Vote them out based on their actions when it mattered – not based on their mealy-mouthed fake opposition to their own votes once the ink dried and their opposition stopped mattering.
