Reporter Margaret Barthel has a routine when she talks to Virginia voters about elections.

I always ask, you know, what are the important issues to you in this election?

And often you hear, you know, pretty national talking points when you ask that question.

But if you ask, what are the local issues that are important to you in this election?

Almost everyone said data centers.

Margaret covers Northern Virginia for NPR member station WAMU.

And this past election day, Virginia elected a new governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general,

and members to all 100 seats in its House of Delegates.

In these races, Margaret says data centers came up again and again.

Take Virginia House District 30, which is part of the Washington excerpts.

The incumbent was a Republican, and the Democratic Challenger really ran on putting constraints on this industry, on data center development in Loudoun County, where a truly enormous number of data centers already are.

I'm John McCallif, candidate for delegate, and I sponsored this ad because I'm tired of losing

family farms to data centers. I've worked to help farmers fight bankruptcy. I'll protect our

communities and nothing else. The message resonated and McCallif won.

You know, I interviewed him before the election, and we were talking about sort of what happens

when he's knocking on people's doors and asking for their vote.

And he would say that if he could get in a line about data centers, often

that would be the difference between somebody saying, hey, sorry, I'm busy, I can't talk

right now. And hey, you know, I actually really want to hear what you have to say.

What does that tell you about this moment that we're in where nationally you have

all these big companies that are pushing to spend money and develop data centers and locally

in, you know, small local races? It's something that voters and everyday people really care about.

...