Midterm elections 2026: all the news

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The 2026 midterm elections will determine the scope of President Donald Trump’s power in his final two years in office, and signal what voters care about going into the 2028 presidential election. While this year’s races are expected to be most broadly defined by affordability issues, there’s several topics impacting the tech industry that appear to be on voters’ minds.

Among them are concerns about data centers, and whether voters will have to bear the burden of higher energy costs, AI safety, and the rapid expansion of surveillance technology through Flock. There’s also the question of how to tax billionaires’ wealth in California, a topic that has driven heavy tech spending and creative stock class structures meant to keep tech executives from fleeing the state should a ballot measure pass.

The next Congress is likely to continue grappling with how to regulate AI, and stem the data center backlash, among other issues. How that conversation shapes up, and which tech CEOs are hauled to testify on Capitol Hill, will be shaped by the outcome of November 3rd.

A high-stakes California ballot measure pitched as a fast track for “essential” infrastructure could wind up giving data center developers a loophole to evade public scrutiny, environmental advocates warn.

Proposition 45 would shorten timelines for state-mandated environmental assessments for eligible projects and make it more difficult for residents to challenge those projects in court. Proponents say passing the measure would help alleviate the state’s housing shortage and meet rising electricity demand with new renewable energy projects. Environmental groups and some legal experts, however, warn that data center developers backing the proposition could escape scrutiny if Prop 45 becomes law.

OpenAI is the latest tech company (and according to Politico, the first major AI company) to set up a command center for fighting election misinfo and abuse of its systems, approaching the second major AI-era US election:…

The Election Operations Center will begin running this week until all votes are counted, to identify the potential spread of misinformation or other efforts to disrupt the elections. It’s meant in large part to combat abuse of the company’s own tools like ChatGPT, monitoring real-time events and fielding reports of unexpected behavior from models or cases of suspected violations of their platform’s terms.

Ask Texas NAACP president Gary Bledsoe what it’s been like to see data center developers descend upon Austin and its surrounding suburbs and he can rattle off project after project facing opposition from locals.

There’s the fight in Taylor over plans to build a data center at a site that’s supposed to be a park. Temple, around 40 miles away, is another sore spot, Bledsoe says. The mayor and City Council members there face recall attempts over data center developments. And some 30 miles outside of Austin, San Marcos became the first city in all of Texas to ban data centers.

If there’s one issue that seems to activate all kinds of voters in 2026, it’s data centers.