The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
As we get closer and closer to the Nov. 3 election, there’s been an issue that’s continued to emerge as an especially contentious one – data centers.
Perhaps more specifically, it’s been the type of hyperscale AI data centers that are being proposed or built all over the country, including here in Wisconsin.
From a political standpoint, a broad opposition to these data centers has emerged in a big way, with the most recent polling from the Marquette University Law School showing that 78% of voters say the costs outweigh the benefits for these mega-projects, and only 21% saying the benefits outweigh the costs.
And this issue is one that does not necessarily cut along traditional political lines. While Democratic voters have become the most opposed to data centers, almost two-thirds of Republican voters are against data centers, and about 80% of independent voters are against them, too.
In the months since polling on data centers has tipped this way, we’ve seen politicians up and down the ballot — from the governor’s race to all sorts of Senate and Assembly races — highlight data centers as a top issue, be it on the campaign trail or in attack ads or whatever it might be.
But part of what might be missing from this larger conversation on data centers is a dialogue on what is actually happening in Wisconsin when it comes to data centers.
So, I’m hosting a two-part conversation on this issue with Wisconsin journalists who are covering this from different angles. This is not to advocate for any one side of this — you can probably guess where I stand, frankly — but to better understand a complex and polarizing issue.
For the first part of this conversation, my guest is Andrew Weiland, the editor of BizTimes Milwaukee, an independently-owned and operated business news media company. BizTimes recently published a cover story with the headline, “It’s the Data Center Economy” and he and the rest of the team have been covering this issue closely in a variety of ways.
See some recent headlines here:
Generac makes potential $8 billion deal with Amazon for data center backup generators
Microsoft forgoes $5 million annual incentive from Village of Mount Pleasant
Watch this episode on The Recombobulation Area’s YouTube Channel here:
For audio-only listeners, you can find The Recombobulation Area podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Here’s this episode, embedded below:
For a beat-by-beat breakdown of this episode, see these titles and timestamps below.
00:00 – Intro: Data Centers Become an Election Issue
01:49 – Meet Andrew Weiland of BizTimes Milwaukee
03:20 – How BizTimes Covers the Data Center Boom
04:06 – The Big Projects: Microsoft, Oracle/OpenAI, and Meta
05:41 – The Supply Chain Story Flying Under the Radar
06:26 – “The Data Center Economy”: Bubble and Backlash Risks
08:00 – Wisconsin Winners: Generac’s $8 Billion Amazon Deal
11:10 – Modine’s Cooling Systems and New Racine and Franklin Jobs
13:31 – Secrecy, NDAs, and How Developers Pitch Projects
15:49 – The Reporter’s Side: Breaking Stories Before Deals Are Announced
17:25 – Microsoft Forgoes a $5 Million Mount Pleasant Incentive
18:16 – TIF Explained: Wisconsin’s Main Development Tool
21:17 – Incentives Then and Now: WEDC, Sales Tax Exemptions, and Stadium Comparisons
24:21 – Port Washington and the Question of Job Numbers
25:51 – Why the Backlash: Power Costs, Big Tech Fatigue, and a Physical Footprint
27:27 – Foxconn’s Legacy and Public Distrust
28:59 – How Foxconn Became a Political Deal
31:21 – From Foxconn Land to Data Centers: Power, Water, Noise, and AI Anxiety
33:07 – Closing Thought: Technological Change Rolls On
36:19 – Jurassic Park Warning and Sign-Off
Part II of this data center conversation is coming soon. Don’t miss it!
Dan Shafer is an independent journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.
