Gas Prices Rise, Then Electricity! Americans Furious as Data Centers Become the Target

U.S. household energy bills continue to climb, pushing the issue of electricity costs to the core stage of American politics.

This week, Bloomberg published an in-depth report that focused on the most pressing pain point in daily life for ordinary Americans: soaring energy bills.

The report points out that electricity bills have evolved from a mere economic burden into a fuse igniting political sentiment. With both oil and electricity prices rising, anger among the American public is spreading rapidly.

At the center of this energy crisis storm, AI data centers—once symbols of technological progress—unexpectedly became the target of criticism. Due to their staggering power consumption, these facilities are now viewed by voters as the culprits driving up electricity costs, even directly becoming "targets" for politicians to attack each other in the upcoming midterm elections.

Undoubtedly, voter concerns about inflation and the cost of living are reshaping the American political landscape. In this report, we see a political storm sparked by a "plug," and its far-reaching impacts are just beginning to emerge.

The Drivers of Soaring Electricity Bills: How Did Data Centers Become "Power-Guzzling Beasts"?

According to data from BloombergNEF, in parts of the U.S. covered by the largest grid, PJM Interconnection, electricity prices have surged by 200% since 2020, with the average monthly electricity bill per household increasing by $23 this year alone.

Furthermore, the independent market oversight agency for this grid predicts that within the next three years leading up to May 2028, the expansion of data centers will add at least $23 billion in additional costs to customer bills.

So, why do data centers located thousands of miles away cause ordinary households' electricity bills to skyrocket? The answer lies in the grid's cost allocation mechanism.

Since infrastructure upgrades and higher wholesale electricity costs are spread across the entire grid, this means that even if you live in an agricultural area far from data centers, you must still pay the bill for this "big eater."

North American electric utilities predict that U.S. summer electricity demand will increase by 224 gigawatts over the next decade, equivalent to adding the electricity usage of approximately 180 million households. One analyst noted that the last time such a scale of demand surge occurred was during World War II.

In February 2025, Trump explicitly characterized electricity price hikes as a consumer issue for the first time in a State of the Union address, a historical first. Professor Joshua Basseches, who studies energy policy at Tulane University, pointed out:

In modern history, it is completely unprecedented for electricity issues to be elevated to a national discussion level and become a campaign issue.

Bipartisan Struggle and Voter Anger: Multi-Party Maneuvering Under a Sensitive Topic

According to a 2025 Ipsos poll, three-quarters of respondents expressed concern over rising utility bills.

In the 2024 election, inflation and economic issues helped Trump return to the White House; this year, the political weight of energy prices in the congressional midterms may rival that of food prices.

For ordinary voters, they are pure pragmatists. One interviewed local voter bluntly stated:

Even if I get a better job, I still worry that my earnings won't keep up with rising living costs and electricity bills.

The public's demand is extremely simple: regardless of party affiliation, vote for whoever can bring the bill numbers down.

On this highly sensitive livelihood topic, the two major U.S. parties have demonstrated vastly different approaches to solutions.

American Republicans blame the previous Biden administration's crackdown on fossil fuels and call for a return to coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to ensure the stability of electricity supply. Meanwhile, Democrats emphasize the need to restore incentives for clean energy and efficiency improvements to fundamentally lower electricity costs.

In Virginia, home to the world's largest cluster of data centers, Representative Jen Kiggans warned that "ridiculously high electricity bills" have placed a heavy burden on voters. After the Trump administration halted approved offshore wind projects, this Republican representative publicly criticized the move, stating that the delay hindered her constituency's access to cheap electricity.

Despite the endless debates among politicians, as former Republican Representative Charlie Dent warned, the ruling party often becomes the outlet for public anger:

Even if they shouldn't bear so much blame on a policy level, they are very likely to be held accountable by voters for it.

Balancing Technological Development with Livelihood Tolerance

The report makes predictions about future trends: with the further popularization of AI technology, the demand for electricity by data centers will only grow exponentially.

If the government and tech companies cannot propose effective cost-sharing solutions or significantly improve energy supply efficiency, the surge in electricity costs will inevitably lead to more severe social fragmentation.

Experts suggest that when building power-hungry facilities, tech companies may need to be mandated to "bring their own provisions," meaning they should independently invest in building supporting new power plants, rather than blindly "draining blood" from the public grid.

Ultimately, the controversy over electricity bills triggered by data centers is essentially a violent collision between rapid technological development and the tolerance capacity of ordinary livelihoods.

If pursuing AI computing supremacy sacrifices the basic quality of life for ordinary people, then such technological progress will inevitably face strong backlash from public opinion, potentially having immeasurable negative impacts on the future political landscape and the technology investment environment.