Then those who believe specific datacenters need to be built should provide better arguments.

If anything the pro-build people should be for regulation so that citizens can know a local buildout means no power outages, water shortages etc. - preventing communities from rejecting DCs for purely defensive reasons.

It's clear the AI companies have not managed the message here, they have fumbled the politics. This is a deserved loss on their part.

I don't think the debate is so much about whether to build data centers as much about where to build them. In an ideal setting, the government identifies land suitable for industrial purpose, carves out dedicated zones, provisioned with necessary power and utilities, where industries can go and setup without intruding into somebody's status quo. The data center buildout at this time is happening at such a pace that they've has exhausted most of the existing zoned options, and unwilling to wait for new zones to be planned, are going out purchasing ad-hoc pieces of land and covertly having them rezoned for industrial purposes. This might sometimes might mean industries popping up behind somebody's residence or in an already resource constrained area. If you look deep, it's actually a fight between those who want to bypass urban planning in the interest of speeding up industrial development versus those who insist it is necessary.

You're expecting a nuanced debate from an electorate that has had this distilled into a purely Boolean issue: bad or good

The position of a pro-build democrat is untenable, when their running mates have successfully painted datacenters as dark portals to the ninth level of hell