Boy, the South Dakota Democrats who are running against data centers are on to something.
The SD News Watch/Chiesman poll finds South Dakotans really don’t like data centers. 57% of likely South Dakota voters told Mason-Dixon they oppose putting data centers in South Dakota. Only 23% support giving SkyNet a home in the Rushmore State. That overwhelming opposition holds across every category counted by Mason-Dixon: sex, age, region, and party. The only categories in which data center opponents outnumber proponents by less than 2 to 1 are 35–49 year olds (1.9:1), 50–64 year olds (1.6:1), and Republicans (1.4:1). Republicans and the 50–64 crowd are the only groups where support for data centers peeks above 30%.
Let’s take a look at the party-affiliation tab…
…and imagine what would happen if data centers were the galvanizing issue for this year’s midterm voters.
The average Legislative district has just about 18,000 active registered voters. Average turnout for historically recent midterms has been around 60%. That means this year we can expect around 9,500 South Dakotans to vote in the typical Legislative district. By current registration totals, that’s about 5,700 Republicans, 2,300 Democrats, and 2,700 independents casting votes for Legislature in each district.
Multiply those voter numbers by the percentages of data center opposition or support in each party, and we can estimate that, if opinion on data centers determined votes, Legislative candidates who say “No data centers in South Dakota!” would clobber candidates inviting data centers here by roughly 6,100 to 2,600, with only 2,100 undecideds remaining to split among the candidates.
| Legislative Voters | Support Data Centers | Oppose Data Centers | Undecided |
| Democratic | 255 | 1,741 | 325 |
| Republican | 1,823 | 2,621 | 1,310 |
| Independent | 487 | 1,703 | 514 |
| Total | 2,565 | 6,065 | 2,149 |
Statewide, an anti-data center candidate would outpoll a candidate unalarmed by the rise of the machines with 212,000 votes to 90,000, with only 75,000 undecideds looking for another issue to vote on.
| Statewide Voters | Support Data Centers | Oppose Data Centers | Undecided |
| Democratic | 8,936 | 60,929 | 11,373 |
| Republican | 63,808 | 91,724 | 45,862 |
| Independent | 17,035 | 59,622 | 17,981 |
| Total | 89,779 | 212,275 | 75,217 |
23 Democratic candidates for Legislature smelled that blood in the water and signed a declaration pledging to fight data centers. Democratic candidate for Public Utilities Commission Frank Kloucek has recognized the widespread alarm over data centers and called for a one-year moratorium on their expansion, while his Republican pro-corporate opponent Don Haggar has stuck his head in the Google/Meta sand.
In just a few days, we’ll find out if those Democrats can capitalize on South Dakota’s clear anti-data-center sentiment.