Colorado Voters Reject Data Centers, Even Ones They'd Never See

Imagine being asked how you feel about a warehouse full of humming computers being built somewhere in your state. Most Coloradans, it turns out, don't like the idea even in the abstract. They like it even less when that warehouse might land in their own zip code.

That's the takeaway from a new poll by Magellan Strategies, released Monday, surveying 1,389 registered Colorado voters between Aug. 26 and Sept. 2, 2026. The findings land just days before Colorado Springs officials vote on whether to permit Project Taurus, a data center proposal that has already drawn sharp local opposition.

The numbers tell a consistent story. Support for data centers erodes the closer they get to a person's daily life. Only 22% of voters back a data center somewhere in Colorado but far from home. That support drops to 20% when the project moves into their own county, 16% when it's in their city or town, and just 12% when it's near their neighborhood. Think of it like asking someone how they feel about a new highway: fine in theory, until the exit ramp lands on their street.

Opposition, unsurprisingly, runs the opposite direction. Overall, 75% of voters oppose building data centers in Colorado at all. That opposition climbs to 82% when the question narrows to their own city or town, with 77% saying they're "strongly" opposed. This isn't a case of mild reluctance. It's a firm, widespread no.

Partisan lines barely soften the picture. Republicans are the most receptive group in the survey, yet even among them, 66% oppose data centers in their own communities. Undecided voters are nearly nonexistent, at 3% or fewer across the board. When a policy question produces numbers like that, it usually means the public has already made up its mind, and made it up firmly.

Why the Opposition Runs So Deep

A majority of Colorado voters aren't just skeptical. They want action. Fifty-five percent say they would support an outright ban on new data centers in their communities, a sentiment that holds even in the 5th Congressional District, which includes Colorado Springs and is at the center of the Project Taurus debate. Another 26% favor stricter land-use rules, echoing a proposal already on the table from Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade.

Much of this resistance traces back to how voters feel about artificial intelligence itself, since data centers are the physical backbone of the AI boom, the server farms that store and process the massive computing workloads these systems require. Think of a data center as the engine room of a cruise ship: passengers rarely see it, but it burns enormous fuel and generates real heat, all to keep the lights and entertainment running upstairs.

Colorado voters are not fans of that engine room, or of the ship it powers. Sixty-six percent view AI unfavorably, and 41% describe their view as "very unfavorable." What's striking is that even people who have actually used AI tools like ChatGPT remain skeptical: 57% of that group still holds an unfavorable view. Familiarity, in this case, hasn't bred comfort.

Age is one of the sharper dividing lines in the data. Younger voters, ages 18 to 44, are especially wary, with 81% viewing AI unfavorably. That compares to roughly 50% among older age groups. It's a notable reversal of the usual generational pattern, where younger populations tend to embrace new technology faster than their elders. Here, the group most likely to compete directly with AI for jobs is also the group most anxious about what it might cost them.

That anxiety shows up directly in the survey's jobs data. Seventy-seven percent of voters expect AI to eliminate jobs, and 88% say they worry about the impact on future generations. These aren't abstract fears about robots in some distant future. They reflect a working population watching automation accelerate in real time, wondering whether their own roles, or their children's, will still exist in a decade.

Water use and utility rates round out the list of major objections. Data centers require enormous amounts of electricity to run their servers and water to cool them, and both costs tend to land on local ratepayers and utility systems, not just the companies building the facilities. For a state already managing water scarcity in parts of its western regions, that concern isn't theoretical. It's a resource question with real consequences for farms, households, and municipal budgets alike.

Why It Matters

This poll lands at a pivotal moment, not just for Colorado Springs but for the broader national conversation about where and how the AI industry builds its physical infrastructure. Data centers are proliferating across the country as companies race to expand computing capacity, and local governments are increasingly the ones left to referee the fallout: traffic, noise, energy strain, water withdrawals, and the promise of jobs that may or may not materialize as advertised.

What this survey makes clear is that public patience is thin, and it's thinning specifically because two anxieties are converging. People are worried about AI's effect on their livelihoods, and they're worried about the tangible, local costs of hosting the infrastructure that makes AI possible. Companies and policymakers hoping to expand data center capacity in Colorado, or anywhere else facing similar sentiment, will need to reckon with both concerns honestly rather than treating them as separate issues. The Colorado Springs vote on Project Taurus will be an early test of whether elected officials heed that message or move ahead regardless.