Today's Poll Question: Are the U.S. and Canada still allies?

**Michael Smerconish** (0:00)
Courage.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:00)
I learned it from my adoptive mom.

**Angie Hicks** (0:03)
Hold my hand.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
You hold my hand. Learn about adopting a team from foster care at adoptuskids.org.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:10)
You can't imagine the reward.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:11)
Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:17)
Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:21)
But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:24)
Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:27)
For Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:29)
Hello, hello. Hi, gang. Today is Thursday. It's the 27th of August, 2026 Here's your Wednesday poll result. 27,600, pardon me, 27,768 voted on yesterday's poll question, which asked, which is worse, building data centers or losing to China the AI race they power? I must say, I'm really surprised by this. I worked hard to come up with a data center question that was not going to have a lopsided result like, yeah, we're all against data centers because the polling is stunning. A year ago in August of 2025, yeah, one year ago this month, national polling had Americans pretty evenly split on the data center issue. The way it was usually framed, would you object to one where you live? About 43% in favor, about 42% opposed, the rest undecided. By March, Gallup had it at 71% opposed, 25% in favor. This month, 75% opposed. And here's the thing, just 4% of Americans say they strongly support a data center near them, notwithstanding that the data centers are kicking off tens of millions of dollars to local communities when they're built. In Pennsylvania, even worse. In Quinnipiac in July, they asked voters whether they would support building an AI data center in their community. 74% said no.
16% said yes. And final detail, it's not a partisan issue. Republicans oppose them 64-25, Democrats 82-11, Independents 77-11.
So not many issues today where you get such agreement among members of disparate parties, but this is one of them. So back to yesterday, with all that in mind, the opposition in mind, I tried to come up with something a bit provocative, and as I read in, and as I saw the stakes vis-a-vis China, and to a lesser extent Russia, I thought, oh, okay, well, if we don't build data centers, we're giving them a leg up. So then what do you think?
Which is worse, building data centers or losing to China, the AI race they power?
27,768 voted and 65.83% said worse is losing to China. We had developer Brian O'Neill in studio yesterday. He's a Philly guy. I've known him a long time. He's seeking to build data centers in the suburbs of Philadelphia, facing strong opposition. We told the whole story yesterday on air, but Governor Josh Shapiro coming out at a press conference and pretty much reversing where he'd been on data centers, you know, one time advocate and touting the dollars and the jobs, but now saying he is instilling parameters on data center developer, but he singled out O'Neill, although not by name and said, I'm a hard no on that plan. And I thought that developer Brian O'Neill extended an olive branch to him yesterday in his in-studio appearance, which if we haven't yet released on YouTube, we will soon do. Please make sure you're watching the content on YouTube, especially with C-SPAN 2 having Simulcast our program this week, tons and tons of great video out there and great production values, if I might say. That's a credit to PJ and the boys at Creative Outfit. I'll give you today's poll question in just a moment.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:00)
The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:03)
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**SPEAKER_2** (4:59)
Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom.