John McAuliff, a Democrat, won a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates by focusing his campaign on the negative impacts of datacenters on his constituents. McAuliff, a small business owner, ran in a district that had not elected a Democrat in decades and focused on issues like affordability, but his primary message centered on how datacenters were increasing electricity bills and threatening the rural character of the area.
Datacenters in Loudoun County, a significant part of McAuliff's district, handle immense internet traffic and are crucial to the digital economy. However, their expansion into more rural areas like Fauquier County raised concerns about noise, visual blight, and the strain on local infrastructure. McAuliff argued that the cost of building new power infrastructure to meet the demand of these massive energy consumers was being passed on to ordinary ratepayers, effectively creating a tax that benefited large tech companies.
Despite initial skepticism about the niche nature of his main issue, McAuliff found that voters, including Republicans and independents, were receptive to his message about the rising energy costs. His campaign, which was significantly more expensive than his opponent's, also addressed other Democratic priorities like reproductive rights and teacher pay. However, the datacenter issue proved to be the most potent, with McAuliff creating a website to link his Republican opponent, Geary Higgins, to the proliferation of these facilities.
McAuliff narrowly defeated Higgins with 50.9% of the vote. Higgins criticized McAuliff's campaign as being built on lies and attributed his loss to outside money and high Democratic turnout. McAuliff's victory in a traditionally Republican-leaning area is being viewed by some within the Democratic party as a model for future campaigns, demonstrating the potential to win in exurban and rural areas by focusing on tangible local issues that resonate across party lines.