In some Maryland counties, frustrations about proposed data center developments led to the ouster of local politicians during last month’s primary election, observers say.
In Frederick County, which is planning for a data center hub, the council chair lost his seat in the primary, and politically inexperienced candidates urging “data center sanity” largely won out.
In Calvert County, where officials are weighing data centers near the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, a similar story played out, and three county commissioners were shown the door.
Environmental advocates believe Maryland’s electoral landscape is only just beginning to see the ramifications of a tsunami of AI data center opposition, as an increasing number of proposals crop up in the state, raising local concerns about electricity use, water use, diesel generator pollution, noise and environmental degradation.
“It’s the political story of this region, going forward,” said Mike Tidwell, founder and director of the nonprofit Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
Tidwell, a local environmental activist for decades, says the bipartisan, near-universal outrage about data centers is “a phenomenon unlike anything I’ve seen.” Fomenting this much rage for environmental issues has typically taken years and years, he said.
“It’s coming from everywhere. It’s red and blue, and it’s not subtle,” Tidwell said. “It’s hard to get everyone in one small town to agree on facts. And yet — organically, unplanned — everywhere across the country, people have made up their minds that they hate data centers — and now we see that they’re voting on that.”
“The public opinion tide has shifted — and it’s probably the fastest change of public opinion I’ve ever seen in all my years of advocacy,” Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, deputy director at Economic Action Maryland Fund.
In Montgomery County, the winning candidate in the crowded Democratic primary for county executive, Will Jawando, had what advocates considered the most aggressive stance against data centers. He proposed a bill calling for a two-year moratorium. On June 12, outgoing county executive Marc Elrich enacted a six-month pause.
“Will Jawando has had a clearer view of where the public is on this,” said Tidwell, a Montgomery County resident. “I think that helped get him elected.”
While numerous Maryland counties enacted temporary data center pauses in the run-up to election season, including Prince George County, Baltimore County, Baltimore City and Howard County, other counties have resisted them.
That includes Calvert, home to the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant, where Amazon Web Services is eyeing a possible data center development. A second proposal from Natelli Holdings would also place a data center development in an industrial zone near the plant and Calvert Cliffs State Park.
The Calvert County Board of Commissioners, has rejected a data center pause on a few occasions, including by a 3-2 vote in April.
Melissa Emmal, a Calvert resident who has grown a social media presence by posting videos about the possible data centers in the county, started a Change.org petition calling for a two-year pause, which has since garnered nearly 10,000 signatures.
Across the county, residents are frustrated that county officials didn’t discuss the proposals openly before the companies came forward publicly. But the frustration may be strongest in Lusby, the community that hosts not only the Calvert Cliffs facility but the Cove Point liquefied natural gas terminal.
“They already feel like they’ve done their fair share of hosting infrastructure,” Emmal said.
Of late, Emmal said she’s noticed more county residents turning up at Calvert County Board of Commissioners meetings to voice concerns about data center development. But she wasn’t sure whether it would translate into electoral success.
It did. The voters ousted all three of the incumbent commissioners who voted against the moratorium, including president Todd Ireland, vice president Mark C. Cox Sr. and commissioner Earl F. “Buddy” Hance, all Republicans.
“It was a big surprise,” Emmal said. “We were hoping to just get one — then the votes would be possible to flip the other way.”
The Republican nominations for the two at-large seats on the board, held by Ireland and Hance, were scooped up by newcomers Patti Stueckler, who ran on an explicitly anti-data centers platform, and Jason Scaggs, who has taken issue with a lack of transparency from county officials on data centers, but has said he is open to a data center at Calvert Cliffs.
The pair will face off against a pair of Democratic nominees in the general election, but as it stands, the council is entirely Republican.
Cox was unseated by Kenneth B. Lee, who will run unopposed in the general election, and ran with the slogan “Stop the Data Centers.”
In Frederick, the county council voted in December to expand an existing zone for data centers in the Adamstown area by about 1,000 acres, essentially creating a 2,500-acre data center alley, while at the same time preventing data centers in other industrial zones elsewhere in the county.
The council’s decision spurred a petition drive to bring the issue to a ballot referendum, which garnered more than 20,000 signatures, approved by the county’s board of elections. But data center companies challenged the legality of the referendum in court, and won a favorable decision from the Maryland Supreme Court on June 30 that will keep the issue off the November ballot.
Observers believe that the council’s decision led to the ouster of Council President Brad Young, who finished third of four Democratic primary candidates vying for two seats.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the data center debate played a significant role in the primary process, and I am anticipating it will again in the general,” said Rick Weldon, who previously served as a Frederick County commissioner and represented the county in the General Assembly. He is currently president of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce.
The council’s other at-large representative, Renee Knapp, who supported the zoning expansion, took the second spot. But it was newcomer Tiffany Grant — who opposed the zoning change, arguing it would gobble up agricultural lands — who won the most votes of any candidate in the race.
Young was seen as the “face” of the council’s decision to expand the data center hub, which was supported by County Executive Jessica Fitzwater, said Kai Hagen, a council member from 2018 to 2022 who opposes the Adamstown development. That’s why, Hagen believes, Young got the boot.
But it wasn’t just Young’s at-large race. In other districts, those nicknamed “data center sanity” candidates won out, including In District 1, which includes Adamstown.
In the Democratic race, Louisa Conklin prevailed, after running a campaign “to regulate and tax data centers, slow or stop approval of new projects and reverse the County Council’s disastrous vote” to expand data center zoning in an area zoned for agriculture.
“This was the issue that got me off the bench — that got me running,” Conklin said. “I had no intentions of seeking office.”
Conklin, who moved to Frederick County in 2022, served as an associate member of the Frederick County Democratic Central Committee. She defeated Jenn Alcorn, who has lived in the county since childhood and became an advocate for local first responders after the 2021 death of her husband, a county police officer. Alcorn also had Fitzwater’s support.
In a statement, Alcorn said she supported the zoning change “not because I took it lightly,” but because it would lower the total number of acres in the county available to data centers, set new specifications for data center development and add to the county’s commercial tax base to help provide residents with tax relief.
Data centers were “clearly a driving issue in this race,” Alcorn said in her statement.
“For six months leading up to the primary, my opponents, Louisa Conklin and Frank Hollewa, ran a sustained effort to label me ‘pro-data center’ — a mischaracterization of a position that always included guardrails and accountability measures,” Alcorn said.
Outside money flowed into the Frederick County primaries in support of Alcorn, Young, and Knapp. Momentum Maryland, a super PAC that spent more than $43,000 on direct mailers supporting the trio, according to the most recent data available on the Maryland State Board of Elections website.
The PAC received all of its funding, $190,000, from a similarly named corporation, which lists a Washington post office box, and is not registered to do business in Maryland. Its website states that its mission is to “foster informed conversation about economic development,” among other issues.
“Momentum Maryland supports policy solutions that strengthen our communities, build our economy, and create growth that benefits all Marylanders.” the website reads.
Neither Conklin nor Grant received any similar outside donations, according to the state’s campaign finance database.
Political action committees such as Momentum Maryland can spend almost unlimited amounts of money supporting or opposing a candidate — but cannot coordinate with candidates themselves.
“My campaign had no contact with that PAC, no knowledge of its plans, and no input into its materials,” Alcorn said in her statement.
All of the Frederick County primary victors must still face a general election opponent. But in many races, the candidates on both sides of the aisle are data center skeptics opposed to the proposed expanded zoning in Adamstown. Hence, the council majority is “virtually guaranteed” to flip against data centers, Hagen said.
“That’s going to change everything,” Hagen said. “It’s been a rubber-stamp council.”
On July 1, about one week after the primary election and one day after the Maryland Supreme Court ruling, Fitzwater signed an executive order pausing new data center development through Dec. 31.
“A week removed from the primary, the county executive is suggesting that we slow down,” Weldon said. “That’s called reading the tea leaves and reacting.”
But Fitzwater, who was unopposed in her primary, chalks the decision up to the Supreme Court decision.
“The Maryland Supreme Court’s ruling marked the end of a years-long process of Frederick County setting clear limits on data center development, but we recognize many of our residents still have concerns,” said Hope Morris, a spokesperson for Fitzwater, in a statement.
Fitzwater’s camp is hopeful that the pause will provide them with time for “additional outreach to share” how the new zoning rules “prioritize our residents’ health and safety and restrict development.”
It remains unclear how the shifting balance on county legislative bodies in Frederick and Calvert will affect local decision-making, and whether the primary results could make an impression on leaders in Annapolis. They established a separate electricity tariff for large-scale data centers, intended to make them foot the bill for their infrastructure build-out — and created an incentive system for data centers to use clean energy — but have not set major restrictions on the facilities statewide.
But Tidwell believes the shift will be apparent in January, when the General Assembly convenes for its regular session.
“I believe that when January rolls around, there is going to be more than one moratorium and ban bill in Annapolis,” Tidwell said. “Something that might have seemed unthinkable – it’s going to be inevitable in January.”
Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), who will move to the state Senate next year, said data centers were “pretty much the top issue” he heard about while campaigning. In Charles, a data center company has proposed reopening a shuttered coal plant, switching it to run on natural gas, to power a data center. Wilson, for one, said he’d be open to a statewide data center pause — and he thinks the public sentiment is shifting that way, too.
“We don’t know what the impact is — but we should pause until we figure out what it is,” Wilson said. “When billionaires think it’s important, I’ve got a feeling it’s not good for us. This is not Republican versus Democrat. This is billionaires versus the rest of us.”
Maryland Matters reporter Bryan P. Sears contributed to this report.
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.
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