Meetings of city councils, county fiscal courts and zoning boards across Kentucky this year were full of constituents speaking their minds about controversial hyperscale data center projects being proposed for their communities.
With Election Day on Tuesday, many of those same people will be filling polling stations with those same projects on their mind, voting in local races where candidates have attempted to turn them into referendums on data centers and how elected officials dealt with them.
This already happened on a smaller scale in the May primaries, when voters in some localities punished incumbents for supporting unpopular projects from 2025 and lifted their opponents to victory. One of the leaders of the opposition in Oldham County won the Republican nomination for its top office as judge-executive, while supporters of data centers went on to defeat there and in Simpson County.
Kentucky over the past year has seen a dramatic increase in announced hyperscale projects that would use a staggering amount of energy to power artificial intelligence services, with proposals in nearly 20 counties.
Some communities have been receptive to projects, as developers promise a flood of tax revenue to help fund local schools and first responders. But locals in several counties — including Barren, Mercer, Carroll, Greenup and Boyd — have put up loud opposition, criticizing the transparency of companies and elected officials and questioning the facilities’ impact on the environment, energy bills or local farmland.
Projects receiving backlash in some areas — like the one bordering Boyd and Greenup — weren’t announced until after candidate filing deadlines, meaning critics can only challenge incumbents with write-in candidates.
Other local races have clearer battle lines, pitting candidates for or against (or neutral) data center proposals. There are even some races for the Kentucky General Assembly where projects in the district have become a major campaign theme — along with a bill passed into law last year to give data center companies 50 years of sales tax breaks.
Here’s a rundown of six Kentucky counties with races that could be impacted by local residents’ and officials’ responses to data center projects.
Barren County, Cave City
After weeks of rumors, Kentucky Industrial Alliance, Inc. filed an application in May to build a massive data center in Cave City, which the company later said would use up to 1.2 gigawatts of power.
Over the opposition of Mayor Dwayne Hatcher, the city council quickly passed a one-year moratorium on any new data center by a 4-1 vote, expressing particular concern over such a facility being built on karst land next to Mammoth Cave National Park. The company promptly sued the city over the ordinance. That litigation is still pending.
Voters in Cave City will now have the opportunity to make the election a referendum on those decisions, as Councilman Clifton Parsley — who voted for the moratorium — is running against Hatcher for mayor. Parsley’s campaign is leaning heavily on the moratorium vote, while three council members who voted for the moratorium (Leticia Cline, Parsley, Andrew Bagshaw, Ronald Coffey) are running for reelection, along with Councilman Denny Doyle, the only member to vote against it.
Neither mayoral candidate has reported raising or spending any money to Kentucky’s election finance regulator, but a mysterious new company has entered the race with ads supporting incumbent Mayor Hatcher.
Community Growth Action LLC reported on Friday that it spent $1,637 on mailed print ads boosting Hatcher. The ads do not mention data centers, but tout Hatcher’s accomplishments in office.
Community Growth Action has not registered with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, and no company by that name is registered with the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office. The group listed its address as a Louisville office suite. An automated voice at its phone number said it focuses on local communities funding police stations and flood prevention, supporting “candidates in communities across the United States whose records align with our priorities.”
A page on its website that was taken down also refers to the election in tiny Burgin, Kentucky. That happens to be the same city where another very controversial hyperscale data center was proposed this year, and is where the only other candidate they have reported buying ads for is running for mayor — who supports the project.
Mercer County, Burgin
Community Growth Action reported spending $400 on mailed ads for Burgin mayoral candidate George Hensley, who currently serves on the Burgin City Council.
Hensley is the only mayoral candidate that Burgin voters will see on the ballot Tuesday, but current interim Mayor Joe Monroe has filed to be an eligible write-in candidate.
Hensley voted in July to advance a controversial proposal for Burgin to annex a large plot of land where developer Panattoni wants to build a hyperscale data center — free from county or city regulations — but Monroe has blocked the vote on the ordinance in the following months.
A referendum on the data center will also be present in Burgin’s city council races, as candidates include two current council members who voted to block annexation (Melinda Wofford and Sid Dunn), one who voted for it (Scott McCoy) and Beth Corea, one of the local activists organizing to block the data center.
Another race where data centers are front and center is the race for the top office on the Mercer County Fiscal Court, as incumbent GOP Judge-Executive Sarah Steele takes on Democratic challenger Chris Walker.
Steele is the odds on favorite in the heavily Republican county, but Walker is one of the activists who has been fighting the data center proposals. Steele supported a one-year moratorium on new data centers that passed the fiscal court this summer — which would not apply to Burgin if the land was annexed — but was also criticized by opponents for signing a non-disclosure agreement with an unnamed data center developer last year.
Mercer County also has a race for state House that was not expected to be competitive this year, but could be in play due to the upheaval over Burgin. GOP Rep. Kim King of nearby Harrodsburg is seeking a ninth term in her district, facing Democrat challenger Katrina Sexton, who lost to King in 2024 by nearly 50 percentage points.
However, some in the community have criticized King for putting down data center opponents online and not showing up at the many public meetings on the issue. Sexton, who lives in Burgin, has been a regular public speaker at those meetings, which have been packed with opponents of the project.
While King is strongly favored, there has been an abnormally large amount of spending by political action committees to help her. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce has spent $12,500 on positive ads for her, while Commonwealth Conservative Coalition PAC has spent nearly $75,000 on exclusively negative ads blasting Sexton as supporting “radical liberals” like Democratic Senate candidate Charles Booker.
While Sexton has criticized King for voting for the 2025 bill giving data center companies a 50-year exemption from paying sales and use tax on computer equipment — estimated to relieve $1 billion to $2 billion of their tax burden if just four are built — King’s campaign released an ad describing her as “holding big tech and data centers accountable.”
The ad highlights her vote for House Bill 593 this year, which passed the House 90-8 before being blocked by GOP leadership in the Senate. The failed bill would have ensured that data center companies don’t pass off costs to utility customers, with the ad saying King “led the fight to protect ratepayers, forcing data centers to pay their own utility costs rather than burden households.”
Jefferson County, Louisville
Democratic candidates have also tried to use the data center issue to go on offense against Republican state House incumbents in the suburban district of eastern Jefferson County and bordering Oldham County.
Along with the upheaval last year in Oldham County — which led to a data center project being blocked — Jefferson County has also been the home to a controversial data center project, which is currently the furthest along of all such proposals in Kentucky.
Longtime GOP Representatives Jason Nemes and Ken Fleming represent districts stretching across both counties, while Rep. Susan Witten is seeking a third term in her east end district bordering theirs. Each reelection race is challenging for the GOP incumbents, as Trump narrowly lost in districts of Fleming and Witten two years ago, while Trump won by single digits in Nemes’ — all while Democrats are expected to perform much better in this year’s midterm election.
Jennifer Hardin is the Democrat running against Nemes, and her ads have primarily gone after Nemes on his vote for the bill to give data center companies the 50-year tax break. In one video ad, Nemes defended himself on the issue, touting his vote for HB 593 and support for strong regulations on them.
Nemes said in the ad he does not support the “hysteria” of those who want to ban data centers, as they are necessary, but adds that they “do not belong” in his district of Jefferson, Oldham and Shelby counties.
The primary criticism that Fleming and Witten are receiving from their Democratic opponents (Suhas Kulkarni and Tim Hall) is also the vote for the data center tax breaks, but the GOP incumbents are getting a lot of help from PACs to defend themselves. Conservative PACs have spent more than $250,000 on ads for Fleming and $336,000 on ads for Fleming, with roughly three-fourths of that spending going to negative ads attacking their opponents as radical liberals.
Data centers are also playing an outsized role in Louisville’s mayoral race, as incumbent Mayor Craig Greenberg has been a supporter of the west end hyperscale project moving forward, while his progressive opponent Shameka Parrish-Wright is a strong opponent and wants to ban them in the city.
Parrish-Wright has attempted to tie Greenberg to Poe Companies — the developer of the data center owned by a former business partner of the mayor — but has not had the campaign funds to spread that message with TV ads. Greenberg has raised $2.2 million over the course of the campaign, while Parrish-Wright has raised less than $120,000.
Carroll County, Carrollton
The same developer green-lit for the data center project in Louisville announced a massive hyperscaler for Carroll County this summer — to the surprise of locals opposed to the plan.
Part of their opposition was from learning that Carrollton city leaders had known about the project for a long time, with Mayor Robb Adams already signing an option to sell city property to the developer.
Adams is facing challenger Danny Maiden in the mayoral race, whose main interest has been the lack of transparency by city officials on the project.
Residents have also been critical of city officials for not disclosing ethical conflicts involving the data center project. A second data center project in the county reached a community benefit agreement with the Carroll County Fiscal Court last week — drawing jeers from the audience, who played audio of data center noises during the meeting.
Simpson County, Franklin
A developer seeking to build a hyperscale data center near the Tennessee border in Franklin was stopped in its tracks late last year — first by a city commissioner member, then by the Simpson County Fiscal Court.
After the developer’s efforts were slowed down in Franklin, Judge-Executive Mason Barnes pushed through an ordinance requiring any developer to have a difficult-to-receive conditional use permit for a data center. TenKey, the developer, then sued the county, saying they did not have the authority to make an ordinance affecting Franklin zoning.
Kelly Bush is the Franklin city commissioner who blocked efforts to advance the project last year, and he is now running for mayor against Wendell Stewart, a fellow commissioner who says he is neutral on a data center and not for an outright ban.
Stewart’s campaign is receiving financial support from some in the community who are very supportive of the data center. This includes $7,000 from TenKey’s attorney and his wife, the current mayor and three employees of a company that does engineering for data center facilities.
TenKey’s lawsuit against the city is still pending.
Warren County, Bowling Green
While a hyperscale data center project has not been announced for Bowling Green, vocal residents are trying to follow the lead of governments in Lexington and Oldham County and enact a moratorium in the meantime.
The Bowling Green City Commission had the chance to pass a six-month moratorium in June, but it was defeated by a 3-2 vote. The mayor who cast the deciding vote is not up for reelection, but the other four commissioners are.
Commissioners Carlos D'Angelo Bailey and Dana Beasley-Brown voted for the moratorium, and are campaigning for candidate Tom Morris to be elected this fall and be a new swing vote on another try for a moratorium. Commissioners Melinda Hill and Sue Parrigin voted against the moratorium.
While the commissioner races are nonpartisan, both state parties are getting involved and taking a side. The Kentucky Democratic Party and county party are both pushing the pro-moratorium candidates, while the Republican Party of Kentucky is supporting Hill and Parragin.
