Texas turning blue may hinge on Democrats harnessing data center opposition

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TEXAS — Mason McCallister said it was an act of God that sent him down a gravel road near his home in Bells, Texas, one Sunday last December.

It wasn't the normal route he and his family take back from church, but he decided to detour so his daughters could shout hello to their grandmother as they drove by her home.

What he saw that day catapulted him into a debate playing out around the country — and especially in Texas — over data centers. It's one that may now affect the outcome of key elections in the Lone Star State.

As they rolled past, flashes of red caught McCallister's eye among the lush green of the area's gentle hills.

"Driving down that road, I just see survey markers everywhere," McCallister, a real estate agent, told CNBC. "And I knew at that time what was happening. I could feel it" — a data center is coming, he said.

Mason McCallister, a real estate agent who has argued for stricter regulations and more transparency around data center development, near his Bells, Texas home.

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McCallister's home is less than a mile from the survey markers, in a rural stretch between Dallas and the Oklahoma border. He and his wife, Heather, built the house on 26 acres, where they keep three horses and a donkey and host frequent family gatherings at a long farmhouse table on their spacious back patio.

The outcry over data centers — warehouses that contain the hardware for powering artificial intelligence and other technology — was only a faint murmur when McCallister first saw the survey markers. In the months since, it's become a dull roar, as increasingly more projects are proposed and built, and general anxiety over AI and its potentially humanity-ending powers grows.

That dynamic has left Republicans — including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for Senate — playing defense as public opinion turns against the facilities.

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'Let Data Reign'

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

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