Texas is one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing markets for AI-related data center development, hosting OpenAI's flagship Stargate campus in Abilene, among other major projects.
Paxton once embraced AI data centers as an engine of job creation and economic growth. As a state senator in 2013, he voted for a tax incentive that later became a major driver of data-center investment in Texas.
In February, local commissioners in Hood County, Texas, requested Paxton’s opinion on whether they had the legal authority to temporarily halt development of data centers. Half a year later, the request is still pending, according to the attorney general’s website.
Paxton’s opponent, Democrat James Talarico, has accused him of political opportunism, pointing to campaign contributions he’s accepted from the tech industry.
“He’s scared his ties to big data center companies will lose him the election, so he’s making a sad attempt to reverse course,” Talarico said in a statement.
The Paxton campaign did not respond to questions about his shifting position on data centers, but accused Talarico of taking money from some of the same corporate interests and voting for a sales tax incentive for large data centers as a Texas state senator in 2023.
“He’s a hypocrite who’s bought and paid for by his coastal billionaire donors,” Paxton's campaign said in a statement.
Both candidates trying to position themselves as populists standing up to deep-pocketed donors is a sign, analysts say, of how much the ground has shifted.
For Republicans especially, who have long positioned themselves as champions of corporate America, there is growing recognition that “it's important to put some distance between themselves and the big tech companies behind these data centers,” said David Karol, a political scientist at the University of Maryland.
In the governor’s race, Abbott’s Democratic opponent Gina Hinojosa has called data centers “the fight of this election season.”
“Everybody knows that his temporary pause on the approval of new data center developments ends November 4, the day after the election,” Hinojosa said in an interview.
Eduardo Leal, press secretary for Abbott’s campaign, said in a statement that the governor “has directed Texas regulators to ensure data centers do not take water needed by communities or power needed by the Texas grid … lower electricity costs for consumers, and pay for their own electricity infrastructure.”
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