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It seems like plans to build data centers are suddenly showing up everywhere and in Michigan they’re being met with waves of local protests.
From Saline Township to Kalkaska, communities are pushing back over the electricity demands, water use, and lack of transparency tied to these facilities that house massive server farms.
So why are these projects popping up all at once?
University of Michigan researcher Ben Green told us this week on the podcast it’s the direct result of the AI explosion’s demand for computing power. Data centers have “in the span of just a couple of months, gone from a somewhat esoteric topic that very few people knew about into something that is regularly on the front page of major national newspapers,” Green said.
And that demand isn’t just driving business decisions. It’s driving elected officials and policy makers too. “There’s this sense of AI hype and FOMO,” Green explains.
Michigan has joined the growing list of states offering tax breaks to attract data centers, part of what Green calls a nationwide “arms race” between companies that pits states and communities against each other at the expense of taxpayers.
In Michigan, the divide over data centers is sometimes playing out in ways that showcase intraparty tensions about charting the path forward. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, celebrated the announcement of a proposed 1.4-gigawatt AI facility in Saline Township as “the largest economic project in Michigan history,” promising thousands of construction jobs and a new high-tech anchor for the region.
But Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel has taken a different stance. She intervened in the case before the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), calling the utility’s request for fast-track approval “a secret deal” and wants a full, contested hearing to make sure DTE customers “are not stuck footing the bill.”
But in other states, further along in the data center rush, political consequences are already playing out. David Chen, National Correspondent at The New York Times, told us that in Georgia, frustration over rising electric bills turned data centers into an unlikely voting issue and flipped long-held Republican seats on the state’s utility commission last month.
“What started out as a sort of referendum on people’s rising electric bills became this litmus test of data centers… I think it’s really emerged as kind of a sleeper issue.”
The politics surrounding data centers are still unsettled and don’t break along the usual lines.
It’s not Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other. It’s often disparate local interests banding together against state-level or corporate decision-makers.
In Georgia, as Chen explained, “it wasn’t a group of professional activists… a lot of Republicans joined the coalition.” And UM’s Green sees the same thing in Michigan: bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition, depending on who feels the impacts closest to home.
Which means that as more data center proposals surface, this isn’t shaping up to be a left-versus-right issue. At least not yet.
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Have questions about data centers? Let us know. We always want to hear from you! Shoot us an email at politics@michiganpublic.org!
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What we’re talking about at the dinner table
Ballot case: A judge wants Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Republicans to strike a deal on how to count absentee ballots with mismatched or missing numbers on ballot stubs and mail-in envelopes. Republicans have been filing a series of lawsuits against the Democratic secretary of state (and candidate for her party’s gubernatorial nomination) over election management. Michigan Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle (who was a GOP-nominated Michigan Supreme Court candidate in 2020) ruled this week that Benson’s guidance would make it too easy for ineligible people to use mail-in ballots. This is the newest wrinkle in a years-long battle and multiple lawsuits between the SOS and Republicans, who say the rules make it too easy for ineligible people to cast ballots. A Benson spokesperson said the challenges are designed to disenfranchise eligible voters.
Property tax: House Speaker Matt Hall said this week he's eyeing a ballot question next year to let voters make a choice between competing plans to reduce the burden of high residential property taxes. The House GOP leader dropped that bit of news during the online-only overtime segment of WKAR-TV’s Off The Record. It is not the first time Hall has talked about going to the ballot over property taxes. But he said Friday that his idea is to create a similar choice that Michigan voters faced with the Proposal A ballot school funding overhaul in 1994. Decades ago, in a one-or-the-other choice, voters decided to go with a sales tax increase over a higher state income tax to shift some of the burden of paying for schools from local property taxes, which had become a big problem for many homeowners. Hall said he’s still working through the details, which would have to include getting buy-in from the Senate Democratic majority and Governor Gretchen Whitmer to get the proposal before voters.
Rounding up 2025: Next Wednesday will be our final It’s Just Politics Issues & Ale of the year! Come join us Wednesday evening in Ann Arbor as we take stock of the year in Michigan politics and look ahead to 2026 (have we mentioned it’s only like the biggest election Michigan has seen in decades?) If you can’t make it in person - no worries - join us virtually - but you do have to register! Hope to see you next week!
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Yours in political nerdiness,
Rick Pluta & Zoe Clark
Co-hosts, It’s Just Politics
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