Have data centres become a defining issue in the US midterms?

Manveen Rana (0:01)

From The Times and The Sunday Times, this is The Story. I'm Manveen Rana.

We're a day away from the most expensive US midterms on record and the race is on for who will control the House and the Senate.

SPEAKER_2 (0:21)

Seeing blue brand new CNN polls and races that could decide who controls the Senate, with results Democrats will like across the board.

Manveen Rana (0:30)

With diesel prices soaring and Donald Trump's poll ratings hitting historic lows, the Democrats could be in for some significant wins. In a last-ditch attempt to win over voters, Donald Trump has been rallying his base.

Donald Trump (0:45)

So I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot.

I'm on the ballot. Just one more time.

Manveen Rana (0:55)

But it's not just voters' opinions of Donald Trump or the Iran war that will shift the dial at these midterms. There's a new political battleground opening around the building of data centers.

Delcia Huddleston (1:08)

I retired out here.

SPEAKER_5 (1:09)

Now all of a sudden, I may not be able to get back when I put it in my home.

Donald Trump (1:13)

Who wants to live next to a data center?

Manveen Rana (1:15)

No vote.

SPEAKER_5 (1:18)

The Democrats, I don't agree with them very often, but they're right on the issue. Republicans, we should be winning on this issue. We're getting our tail came.

SPEAKER_7 (1:26)

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro had promoted data center investments just last year. Now, he's imposing new restrictions on them.

SPEAKER_8 (1:34)

President Trump is defending data centers. In this Truth Social Post, the president said, the only reason to oppose data centers is if communities wanted to end up quote, backwards and poor.

Manveen Rana (1:47)

So why have data centers become such a hot button issue? What is resistance like on the ground? And how will this change how Americans vote tomorrow?

The story today, have data centers become a defining issue in the US midterms.

So I was in Northern Kentucky, sort of just on the edge of the Ohio River, in a place called Maysville. That's Susie Coen, US correspondent for The Times and The Sunday Times. She's been on the road in the run up to the US midterms, getting a sense of what voters in middle America really care about. The corner that I was in is very rural, very small, 60 miles from Cincinnati, and everyone knows each other. Sort of close-knit community, rolling, sloping, green farmland and lovely expanse of nature as well. It was in Kentucky that she met a pair of farmers with first-hand experience of one of the big issues in this election, data centers. I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Ida Huddleston, who's 83, and her daughter, Delcia R. She is 54 They are mother and daughter, very strong-willed widows who were great fun, and they've become these two Davids standing up to the Goliath of these huge data centers. Their farmers, their families owned this land in Kentucky since 1848, which they built on, and they have this wonderful connection to it.

Delcia Huddleston (3:42)

Land always means freedom.

Ida Huddleston (3:43)

Land is the land. There's nothing like it.

Delcia Huddleston (3:45)

No other equation whenever you put land in there is freedom. You're free to go and come and go as you please. If you've got a horse, you can ride all of the fence rows in one day or two.

Manveen Rana (3:57)

Did you used to grow your own vegetables here?

SPEAKER_2 (3:59)

Oh, yeah. We used to can and air.

Manveen Rana (4:01)

Well, what would you grow? Ida and her late husband Bill built this beautiful cabin which she lives in today, and that Delcia and her have matching recliners in, and they like to sit and put the world to rights together.

They have this extraordinary story of going from being a mother and daughter who really do exist by themselves. They have this reputation of being shoot first, ask questions later farmers, so not to get bothered too much by their neighbors. But one day these two gentlemen turn up and make them this incredible offer to buy their land.

Delcia Huddleston (4:49)

They come through the door, we want to buy everything you got.

Manveen Rana (4:52)

Just how impressive was this offer? What was on the table? Initially, he said 48,000 per acre. So they wanted 463 acres of Delcea Bars land. Ida Huddleston, the mother said, well, since we're in La La Land, I'll take 60,000. And they said, okay then. Oh, wow. So they agreed to 60,000 per acre for her 71 acres. So combined, that's 26.48 million.