The data center fight could decide the next president and cost America the AI race

It’s the fall of 2028. A debate moderator turns to two presidential nominees who spent their governorships fighting over data centers. "China’s AI lead is now a fact," she says. "In 2026, you decided to restrict data-center construction, and the machinist in Youngstown, Ohio, watched his job follow the servers to the Gulf. What do you tell him? Which of your policies would you take back?" That reckoning is two years away, but the choices that will decide it are being made now. Rising electric bi