Exit Polls Rank AI and Data Centres Last Among Five Issues in US Midterm Vote

The polling found that 56 per cent of respondents called AI and data centres a decisive or important factor in their vote. Government corruption topped the list at 90 per cent, followed by the cost of living at 89 per cent, the war in Iran at 74 per cent and immigration enforcement at 73 per cent.

The gap between AI and the other topics was wide. AI trailed the fourth-placed issue by 17 percentage points, even though The Decoder noted that public interest in AI has surged in recent months.

What the Numbers Suggest

The result needs careful reading. Coming last on a short list of high-salience national issues does not make AI marginal. A majority of voters still said it played a decisive or important part in their choice, a high share for a technology policy question in a federal election.

The ranking also measures how much voters cared about the issue, not which way they leaned on it. The polling did not show whether respondents who cited AI and data centres favoured or opposed faster construction, or tighter regulation of the industry.

Why It Matters

Investors have spent the past day weighing what Democratic control of both chambers of Congress means for the AI build-out, and technology stocks have fallen on concerns about tougher rules and local resistance to data centres. The exit polls suggest a mixed picture. Data centres and AI were not the main drivers of the result, which voters tied far more closely to corruption, prices and the Iran war. But more than half still said the issue counted.

For companies planning large compute campuses in the US, and for Gulf investors funding them, local politics around power prices, water and land use is likely to stay part of the risk calculation, even if AI is not the issue that decides national elections.