The two major party candidates on the ballot this fall in Virginia’s 6th Congressional District appear miles apart on nearly all issues except for one: data centers.
Incumbent Republican Rep. Ben Cline and Democratic challenger Beth Macy have both said that they support a moratorium or pause on the construction of data centers in the state until measures are in place to provide transparency and protections for residents and the environment regarding the operation of the technology infrastructure.
Virginia became known as the “data center capital of the world” after the General Assembly passed legislation in 2008 to create a data center sales and use tax exemption for economically distressed localities. In 2010, the legislature voted to expand the tax breaks statewide and in 2016 to extend the exemption sunset date from 2020 to 2035.
Since 2008, technology companies have built more than 600 centers across the commonwealth. Their growth began in Northern Virginia but is now spreading into more rural areas in the commonwealth, including the 6th District.
Data center developers and operators have found themselves increasingly at odds with the court of public opinion in recent months, as more Americans have expressed greater concern about the environmental impacts and high energy consumption of the centers. Growing concerns regarding the development of artificial intelligence, powered by AI data centers, have also contributed to increasingly negative public opinion.
According to a September report by Pew Research, 54% of Americans surveyed say data centers are mostly bad for the environment, up from 39% in January; 50% say they are mostly bad for home energy costs, up from 38%; and 49% say they are mostly bad for people’s quality of life nearby, up from 30%. Roughly 4% of Americans said data centers have a mostly good impact in each of these areas. The Pew survey was conducted from July 20 to Aug. 9 among 10,548 U.S. adults.
The Pew report also highlighted that 6 in 10 Americans said they would be “not too” or “not at all” comfortable with a new local data center — that included roughly 54% of respondents who identified as Republican and 68% who identified as Democratic.
A push for data center guardrails from both sides of the race
Data centers are quickly becoming one of the bellwether issues in the midterm elections, and the 6th District race is no exception.
Macy, a newcomer to politics and a longtime journalist, does not have a voting record in Congress or in the General Assembly to examine for data centers.
She came out against a proposed data center in Roanoke County in September.
“Big Tech will continue to run roughshod over communities until there are guardrails on data center construction,” she said in a statement she shared opposing the proposed center in Roanoke County.
She added, in that statement, that she supports a moratorium on new data centers until there are “clear rules that will bring transparency to the process, protect our water, keep energy prices in check, force companies to pay for renewable energy and contain AI before it controls us.” That would include national standards on data center siting, instead of leaving it up to states and local governments to make their own rules.
“The piecemeal approach that pits state versus state, county versus county, town versus town, neighbor versus neighbor is what got us to this moment,” she said and argued that federal rules could give residents “more control over what happens in their neighborhoods.”
When asked later that month how she planned to get such legislation passed if elected to Congress, she said Democratic majorities in both chambers would pass legislation to regulate the technology. Congress is currently controlled by Republican majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
“Many Republicans will join us in these votes,” she added.
Though the effort to curb data center growth has seen support across party lines, President Donald Trump has positioned his administration as one friendly to tech companies and the development of AI, going so far as to call it the next potential “industrial revolution, maybe bigger.”
A bill to establish regulations for data centers and AI would need to be signed by Trump if Congress were to act before 2029.
Macy said that the president has “proven to be malleable” when asked whether she believed such legislation could be enacted during the current administration.
Cline last month called for a pause on data center construction after he was asked about his position on the issue by Cardinal News.
In an email, he said that he opposes the construction of more data centers until sufficient guardrails can be constructed at all levels of government. He also mentioned that he has opposed the construction of the tech infrastructure in rural parts of the commonwealth.
Cline was first elected in 2018 to represent the 6th District. He was a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates from 2002 until 2018.
While in the House, Cline voted with the majority of General Assembly members in 2008, 2010 and 2016 to create, expand and extend tax breaks for data centers.
When asked about those votes, Cline acknowledged that the legislation, which saw unanimous or near-unanimous support from both parties, has led to the rapid growth of data center construction largely concentrated in Northern Virginia.
“I am aware of only one large-scale data center currently located in the 6th District, near Front Royal, and I oppose the construction of more data centers until sufficient guardrails can be constructed at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure citizens have transparency throughout the process and adequate protections from the impacts of data centers on their electric bills and water supplies,” he said in an email.
There is more than one data center currently operational in the 6th District, according to Data Center Map, but it is unclear if those centers qualify as “large scale.” Data Center Map is a self-styled “go-to” for industry professionals seeking information on data centers.
In Congress, Cline voted in favor of H.R. 1, a federal spending bill signed into law by Trump in July 2025. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, tech companies seeking to build data centers benefited from federal tax incentives included in the legislation if the companies began construction on the centers within 60 days of the bill’s passage and brought them online by 2028.
Asked about his vote in support of the bill, Cline said that while H.R. 1 did provide several tax incentives for industrial development and job creation, it never specifically mentioned data centers.
Cline also voted in favor of the bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Bill, along with 416 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives, in September. He called the legislation an “important first step” to require state electric utility regulators to consider adopting rules that make data centers pay the full cost of required energy infrastructure upgrades. Critics of the legislation have said that the bill lacks enforcement capabilities. The legislation is now before the U.S. Senate.
When asked how Cline has opposed data centers in his current role as a member of Congress, Tim Murtaugh, an advisor to the Cline campaign, provided a link to a Facebook post where Cline voiced his support for an amendment introduced by Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., to the fiscal year 2027 House Energy and Water Committee appropriations bill. That amendment sought to establish reporting and transparency guidelines for data centers. It’s unclear if it was included in the final appropriations bill. A spokesperson for Espaillat did not respond when asked if his amendment was successful.
“I applaud rural localities like Frederick County that have adopted resolutions to limit data center construction,” Cline said via email in late September.
He added that he is working in Congress to impose guardrails that would “protect citizens from the adverse impacts of data centers and ensure transparency so that citizens are not kept in the dark about how a data center project could impact electric rates, water supplies, or local taxation and budgetary decisions.”
Data centers as economic drivers? And a fight over money
Data centers have created an economic boon for the localities they’re in.
In Loudoun County, located in Northern Virginia, data centers have generated “substantial tax revenue” through personal property tax on the computer equipment located inside the data centers as well as real estate taxes on the buildings and land on which they are located. Loudoun County has received an unprecedented amount of revenue through this single source, according to the county website. In fiscal year 2026 alone, the centers brought in $1.2 billion in revenue for the county.
In Mecklenburg County, Microsoft infrastructure accounted for 11% of the 2025-2026 net budget. The county, with a population of about 30,300, expected roughly $22.3 million in revenue from Microsoft over the biennium. That revenue has funded capital projects including public school renovations.
The data center in Mecklenburg was among the first to benefit from the newly created tax exemption in 2008.
Macy pushed back against the idea that data centers are a “golden ticket for rural areas” and called that characterization a “Big Tech myth.”
“Data centers spur initial jobs, but they deplete affordable housing, pose threats to water and energy, and they power AI, which Goldman Sachs now thinks will displace 9% of the workforce, up to 15 million workers,” she said in an email.
She added that she believes a moratorium on data center construction could provide time for Congress to establish regulations that could allow rural communities to enjoy benefits of the centers while restraining tech corporations.
“With proper oversight, data centers could benefit some communities. However, relying solely on data centers as a single economic source to provide tax revenue should not be a long-term strategy for rural America. We don’t need data-center factory towns,” she said.
Both candidates leveled accusations against their opponent regarding campaign contributions and retirement investment accounts connected to technology and energy companies.
Cline’s campaign accused Macy of owning stock in tech companies, including Google, Amazon and Blackrock, through retirement accounts.
“Like a lot of people, Tom [Landon, her husband] and I have a few retirement accounts, and we have a financial planner who invests that money for us. He has done this for us since we were in our 30s and first had kids,” Macy said in response. “I’m sure there probably are some tech stocks in it, but that has no bearing on how I’m going to hold big tech and other giant corporations accountable.”
Macy pointed out that Cline has accepted campaign contributions from tech and energy companies — including $2,000 from Google, $6,000 from Amazon and $8,500 from Dominion Energy — during the 2026 election cycle, according to filings with the Federal Elections Commission. Cline also received campaign contributions from tech and energy companies while in the General Assembly, including $13,750 from Dominion, $10,500 from Appalachian Power Co. and $2,000 from Facebook/Meta, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
(Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.)
Murtaugh, Cline’s campaign advisor, said that the contributions the congressman has received have not influenced his positions on issues.
“The people of Virginia’s 6th District have sent Rep. Ben Cline to serve as their voice in Congress for the past eight years, and have graciously contributed their time and treasure to his campaigns. Regardless of who the donors may have been over the course of his nine Delegate campaigns and four Congressional campaigns, the contributions received have never dictated the congressman’s positions or votes on the issues,” Murtaugh said via email.
