2 Stocks Sidestep the Data Center Backlash
Local voters drew a hard line on November 3, 2026. Industrial Info Resources (IIR), citing Ballotpedia data, reports that voters in 40 local jurisdictions across 10 states voted to pause, limit, or ban data centers, a count Jim Cramer repeated. IIR also found that Ohio alone had 21 measures, and they all went against data centers.
The only result in favor of a data center came in Harwood, North Dakota. All of these were small, rural local measures. No statewide or national question was on the ballot.
Cramer reacted to IIR’s count on Mad Money: “Voters rejected data centers in 40 of 41 ballot measures. The people have spoken. If the Democrats take back the presidency in 2028, the federal government could end up regulating the industry. That’s a decided negative.”
On November 10, 2026, after the IIR-tracked votes, Venture Global (NYSE:VG) used its Q3 2026 earnings release to propose an off-grid AI utility for data centers. Its shares rose 7.1% in Tuesday’s premarket trading to $12.64. Vertiv (NYSE:VRT | VRT Price Prediction), which makes power and cooling equipment for data centers, slipped 0.2% premarket to $200.03.
What the Vote and the Filing Cover
According to IIR, the newly elected governors of Texas, Georgia, and Ohio campaigned against data centers. Those three states hold about 173 GW of planned data center capacity, roughly 39% of the U.S. pipeline, and 14.2 GW of it is already under construction. Executive orders cannot come before January at the earliest. Utility regulators and grid operators such as PJM Interconnection are also moving toward requiring data centers to bring their own power plants or protect other customers from the cost of serving them.
Venture Global’s firm commitments are narrow. It has frame agreements, which are master contracts that set terms for future orders, with GE Vernova (NYSE:GEV) and Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) Energy Services for up to 16 new 720 MW power islands plus transformer and grid equipment. A power island in “island mode” generates electricity on site with no connection to the grid. The plan to start delivering computing capacity in late 2028 and reach about 5 GW by the end of 2031 is a company target. The release did not disclose any customers, contracts, pricing, or capital budget.
Read-Through for Venture Global and Vertiv
The release describes “a potential new, additive line of business for the Company: expanding our existing and proven capabilities building and operating an island-mode power and infrastructure network to be able to offer an off-grid AI utility to support data centers.” It adds: “By leveraging this natural extension of our Company’s core competencies, we can solve for the predominant challenges to the data center build out similar to how we solved the key speed and scale challenges for the LNG market.” That ambition comes from a company with a $6.27 billion market cap and $53.615 billion in total liabilities. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports still drive the results: Q3 revenue rose 42.87% to $4.756 billion.
On CNBC Fast Money, a panelist said: “Vertiv: they’ve doubled orders, revenue is up 61%, sold off due to politics. I’m a buyer.” Vertiv’s filing, released before the IIR-tracked votes, shows Q3 revenue rose 61.18%, and organic orders, which exclude acquisitions, grew by more than 100%. The selloff shows up in the price: the stock is down 17.6% since October 9, 2026. On Vertiv’s October 28, 2026, earnings call, CEO Giordano Albertazzi listed power availability, permitting, public opinion and a shortage of skilled construction labor as “pacing items, but they are not slowing down growth.”
Reality Check: Off-Grid Power Still Needs a Permit
IIR expects data center construction to continue, perhaps at a slower pace, as developers shift toward community engagement and benefit funds. Cramer’s federal regulation risk depends on a 2028 election. On-site power answers the complaint about electric bills, but a gas-fired plant still needs local land-use approval, the same kind of approval voters just refused. Venture Global would also face existing competition: Vertiv already bought Utility Innovation Group, which designs microgrids and on-site power systems. (We covered seven of these non-chip AI infrastructure suppliers, from power to cooling, in a free report you can grab here.)
Does the Backlash Help or Hurt These Stocks?
The backlash hurts Vertiv’s valuation more than its business. Vertiv equips data centers whether they draw power from the grid or make their own, and it reports 12 to 18 months of backlog coverage. For Venture Global, the backlash helps the sales pitch, but the premarket gain prices in a business line that has no customer yet. Three things will test this view: whether Venture Global announces a signed data center customer, whether the new governors of Texas, Georgia, and Ohio act after January, and how the December local data center votes in Arkansas and North Dakota turn out.
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Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.
Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community.
Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.
Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions.
