Wisconsin faces a huge challenge. Parts of America’s Dairyland are morphing into “Dataland” with the growth of data centers across the state. Tech companies are drawn to Wisconsin for its climate, water, land, infrastructure and available workforce.

“We need data in everything that we do, and it’s got to be stored and secured and accessible and managed in a reasonable and safe way,” said Rich Barnhouse, president and CEO of Waukesha County Technical College, who is a proponent of these developments.

“There are locations elsewhere in Wisconsin even that would be more appropriate,” said Jeff Lueck, an anti-data center activist in Port Washington.

In its surveys of Wisconsin voters about their most important issues in 2026, Marquette Law School Poll Director Charles Franklin said data centers are barely on the radar for Democratic, Republican and independent voters. At the same time, they have become a flash point in the race for governor with heated campaign ads.

“What’s so striking is there’s just no pocket within the state of public opinion that’s really pro data centers” he said. “Inflation and the cost of living is 42%. It’s been the top issue for at least four years now — doesn’t seem to be going away at all. But data centers, in contrast, only 5% named data centers as most important.”

Franklin speculated about how that dynamic is playing out in David Crowley’s and Tom Tiffany’s campaigns for governor.

“Running in an environment where so many people are opposed but don’t think it’s the most important issue is a reason for candidates to sort of stay a little clear of that issue, or express some opposition but maybe be a little vague,” Franklin said.

He also pointed to a broader factor connected to the issue.

“Opposition or fear of artificial intelligence turns out to be a pretty big contributor to opposition to data centers,” Franklin said.

However, there is a dedicated constituency in favor of data centers and the jobs they bring.

“We want Wisconsin to win, we want America to win,” Barnhouse said. “And we’re willing to help anybody who wants to get started in these technologies.”

At Waukesha Community Technical College, Barnhouse said they proudly cultivate students and careers in AI technologies, which includes jobs in the booming data center arena.

“When I was meeting with a lot of companies who had 20 or fewer employees — which is the traditional typical Wisconsin business — and they weren’t using the words artificial intelligence. But when I asked what they are looking for in an employee in the next few years, they were describing artificial intelligence without knowing they were describing it,” he said.

Barnhouse pointed to the college’s expanding campus.

“This has just flourished. It got so big, we had to go out and do a capital campaign, and we’re adding about 12,000 square feet of space,” he added.

Large and small, a growing number of tech companies are lured to Wisconsin, spending billions to build data centers — $1 billion by Meta in Beaver Dam, $15 billion by Oracle in Port Washington, and over $20 billion by Microsoft in Mount Pleasant, altogether creating nearly 2,000 full-time jobs.

Rob Marchant of the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition loves it. He travels the state lobbying others to feel the same way, and said he doesn’t want Wisconsin to miss out on the growth of the industry.

“We’re a state that makes things,” he said. “We build things and we solve problems. So, we did that with heavy machinery manufacturing. We’re doing it now with advanced manufacturing, high-technology medical devices.”

Marchant pointed to the small village of Winneconne, with a population of just over 2,500. Steps away from a bright blue water tower sits Switchgear Power Systems, a 400-person company whose CEO estimates just over a third of its workers build components that support data centers in and outside of Wisconsin.

“So they’ve had a really large impact already on our economy,” Marchant said.

By the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition’s estimate, it’s a $13 billion impact in Wisconsin’s supply chain, in workers at job sites and in education.

When it comes to concerns over water and power use by data centers, Marchant points to changing technology.

“These new data centers are paying their own way as far as power infrastructure goes and their power bills — and we have closed-loop cooling, which again uses very little to no water depending on the size of the data center,” he said.

Marchant also emphasized the local tax base.

“They can fund schools, there’s property tax revenue,” he said. ‘Does a community need snow plows? Does it need a library? Does it want stream restoration? It really kind of depends. But those benefits are real, and I hate to think of a community just saying no without exploring the possibilities, understanding the facts, and then making an informed choice.

A few blocks from the heart of downtown Port Washington, often called “Port” locally, Lueck is part of the community’s constituency against data centers.

“I won’t stop pushing back until they’re stopped,” he said.

Lueck said made his informed decision on data centers months ago, and he’s not ashamed to show it, displaying a large banner on a fence in front of his house.

“People don’t have time to put in on this kind of stuff and I get that,” he said. “It’s that important and someone has to open their mouth.”

Lueck took note of conditions in Port Washington.

“There may be some extra downtown traffic, there may be things in the grocery stores or the restaurants, but on weekends you watch everybody move on out,” he said.

The community’s opposition hasn’t been enough to stop 24-hour construction of a massive 672-acre data center for the tech giant Oracle about a mile away from Lueck’s home.

“It don’t need to be any bigger than what it is here in Port,” he said.

Lueck and others continue to have concerns about the potential expansion of the data center, and its impacts on energy, water and the overall environment.

“The trail was used a ton,” he said, pointing to the Ozaukee Interurban Trail, which runs adjacent to the data center that’s under construction. “I use that Interurban Trail myself at times, and there’s nowhere near the amount of people using it that there were using it. A couple of times with just the Interurban trail, they’ve interrupted us with it.”

While being interviewed outside of his house, a passing vehicle honked its horn.”That’s our support, and I still get the beeps just standing in my yard.”

In communities all across Wisconsin, voters and politicians have some tough decisions to make about the future of data centers in the state.

“Good government follows a process, takes in information from all sides, evaluates it, and then makes a decision,” Marchant said.

“We can do this community by community, industry by industry,” Barnhouse said, “or we can take a look at things collectively, holistically, and say, ‘How do we want to do this in our state?'”