After Box Elder County Commissioner Lee Perry lost a GOP primary race in Utah on Tuesday, he blamed a vote in favor of a data center for the loss. Perry’s “yes” vote, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, cleared the way for a massive data center in the area.
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Perry, in his concession, said, “Do I think that the data center vote cost me the election? Yes, I do. Would I do anything different?…. I wouldn’t vote differently, but I would push back against the state and make them come out publicly and tell everybody why they’re forcing it down our throat.”
Perry, who lost to GOP primary challenger Nathan Tueller by roughly 8 percent, isn’t the only Republican who is blaming support for data centers for a loss.
Newsweek’s Joe Roberts reports, “A wave of voter anger over massive data center projects is beginning to reshape U.S. politics, with local officials and senior lawmakers losing elections after backing controversial developments tied to the artificial intelligence boom. In Utah on Wednesday, State Senate President J. Stuart Adams — one of the most powerful Republicans in the state — lost his primary election after supporting a major data center development near the Great Salt Lake, in one of the clearest signs yet of the growing political risks tied to the industry.”
According to Roberts, the “defeats of Adams and multiple county officials” in Utah on Tuesday “suggest that opposition to data centers is no longer confined to planning disputes — but is emerging as a voting issue capable of reshaping elections.”
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“The controversy in Utah centered on a sprawling proposed data center campus, known as the Stratos project, planned near the Great Salt Lake,” Roberts explains. “Described as one of the largest data centers in the world, and backed by ‘Shark Tank’ investor Kevin O’Leary, the Stratos development would have spanned tens of thousands of acres in Box Elder County’s Hansel Valley. The project would ultimately require up to 9 gigawatts of power — more electricity than the entire state of Utah currently uses, according to The Guardian, although O’Leary later told NBC News he would be willing to shrink the project.
Adams, Roberts notes, “became a focal point for opposition after backing the development.”
“Those concerns translated into political consequences,” according to Roberts. “Adams, who had previously won reelection comfortably, was defeated by a challenger who ran in part on opposing the project. At the county level, commissioners who voted to advance the project also lost their primaries.”
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