Republican and Democratic voters in rural Georgia unite over one issue — their opposition to data centers.
Georgia is in the middle of a data center boom. There are more than 270 data centers across the state. Opposition to them is uniting citizens across traditional partisan divides. Grant Blankenship of Georgia Public Broadcasting reports.
GRANT BLANKENSHIP, BYLINE: By mid-July, rumors that a data center was coming to the city of Albany in southwest Georgia demand attention.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Is this going to happen?
UNIDENTIFIED CITY MANAGER: No, it hasn't happened yet. It isn't happening yet, no.
BLANKENSHIP: To be clear, the city manager says there's no data center deal in Albany. But city leaders are putting on a series of public sessions on data centers anyway to clear the air. Meanwhile, out in the lobby of this high school auditorium, Lauren Dorminey is organizing for another meeting.
LAUREN DORMINEY: And we will have citizens lining up for their five minutes for as long as it takes, if they'll allow it.
BLANKENSHIP: She's rallying people in Albany to organize in nearby Mitchell County against the construction of a natural gas power plant, which the state wouldn't even need without the data center boom. Mitchell County is majority white and Republican, while the county surrounding Albany is majority Black and Democratic. Dorminey says she's been trying to get people to look past those labels.
DORMINEY: So I've told people we're going to have to come together. You're going to have to sit beside people that don't look like you because we all drink water, and we're all on the same aquifer.
BLANKENSHIP: University of Tennessee sociologist Nikki Luke studies the connection between electrical utilities, civil rights and democracy. And she's been paying attention to how data centers are breaking down political silos.
NIKKI LUKE: There's crossing racial lines, crossing class lines. People are finding solidarity across difference in fighting data centers.
BLANKENSHIP: Because, she says, the data center issue is landing in communities – often white, often suburban, veering into rural – which historically haven't been saddled with this kind of environmental burden. And so, even if this is new to them…
LUKE: They're learning from environmental justice communities and from urban communities about how to grapple with what's happening.
BLANKENSHIP: Lauren Dorminey tells people she believes that unity is the last thing data center developers want.
DORMINEY: And I have to remind them that they are banking on us being red team-blue team.