Data centers unite Wisconsin voters but are 'toxic' for politicians

She lives about four miles from where Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is building a data center in Beaver Dam. The fifth grade teacher has struggled to know where to turn with her concerns about whether the data center development could be harming her water or land.

And although Kocinski has been a dedicated Democratic voter, her experience as a data center neighbor is causing doubts about her choice in the Nov. 3 election for governor.

Wisconsin has seen a boom of proposed hyperscale data centers, large facilities that house servers often used to power artificial intelligence technology. In addition to Meta’s $1 billion campus in Beaver Dam, data centers are being built in Port Washington and Mount Pleasant, and others have been proposed in DeForest, Janesville, Wisconsin Rapids and elsewhere.