Kansas picked a governor who ran against data centers

Democrat Cindy Holscher won the Kansas governor's race on Thursday night, defeating Republican Ty Masterson, who conceded once the race was called 2

2

. She ran on one promise above all the rest: a pause on new data-center approvals, in one of the most conservative states in the country.

The promise came from the town halls

The moratorium she campaigned on would hold up approvals until the state can assess what data centers actually do to the communities they land in 2

2

. It would also make sure the projects help rather than harm them 2

2

. She told Reuters earlier this year that the position was a "no brainer", because data centers came up at every town hall she held 2

2

.

What she was hearing, she told Reuters, is that people are "tired of their communities being left behind in terms of economic development, but they don't want to have to sell out their resources or their people to be invested in" 2

2

.

The position had a price

The stance cost her. Democratic party officials initially advised against it, and she lost the backing of the state's top labor unions 2

2

. The state's largest transit and railroad union and a local chapter of the electrical workers union both endorsed Masterson over the issue 2

2

. Per Reuters, the sole source reporting the race, it was the first time in decades that Kansas labor unions had backed a Republican 1

1

.

Masterson, a fellow state legislator, supported data centers as a driver of local economic growth 2

2

. He lost anyway.

What she inherits

The state she is about to govern has about $46 billion in announced data-center projects, most of them around Kansas City 2

2

. It sits inside a Midwestern hub that has been dubbed the Silicon Prairie 2

2

. Those are announced projects, not finished ones, and what happens to them under a moratorium is not yet reported.

Per her own account to Reuters, the issue for Holscher is about energy costs and local control rather than opposition to investment itself 2

2

. Holscher said companies like these are "some of the richest corporations in the world" 2

2

. She said they "can come in and steamroll some of our local city councils and our other local governing bodies" 2

2

. "We have to have those guardrails, or it's not good for us" 2

2

.

A backlash beyond Kansas

Holscher was not alone in running on it. Gubernatorial candidates in Texas, Ohio, Georgia and Nevada also seized on fears about AI and data centers this cycle, pitching policies to rein the industry in 2

2

.

The data-center issue also sat inside a wider Democratic night in Kansas 2

2

. Reuters attributes the Senate result to backlash against the administration's immigration crackdown rather than to data centers 2

2

.

A campaign backed by billionaires including Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz already lists Kansas among its targets 2

2

.