By Andrew DeMillo | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning, Advocate readers! Concerns about AI and data centers are becoming more prevalent in this year’s midterms. That includes in the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Arkansas. Today we talk with the Senate candidates about the technology and whether it needs more federal regulation. You can find more Arkansas government and politics news on the Advocate site here.
A server room in a data center. A recent poll found more than 70% of Americans don’t want a data center built near them. (Getty Images)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Tess Vrbin
Voters’ concerns about artificial intelligence and the data centers that keep it running have gained prominence during the midterm election cycle, prompting questions about how the federal government could regulate the industry.
Signs for several candidates line the street outside the Pulaski County Regional Building in Little Rock, Arkansas on the first day of early voting on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (Photo by Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Tess Vrbin
The U.S. Department of Justice will send election monitors to Arkansas’ two most populous counties on Election Day, prompting one of the counties to vote to not allow them inside polling places.
Vicki Wanamaker, left, and Cathy Mager, right, talked in Wanamaker’s Springdale, Pennsylvania, home on Oct. 19, 2026, about their opposition to a proposed hyperscale data center roughly a quarter mile away. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
By DC Bureau
Both Democratic and Republican candidates during the heated midterm election cycle have had to navigate deep voter resentment of the massive advanced computer server farm developments that will power artificial intelligence.
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