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They Ignored the Voters. The Voters Noticed.
A data center just ended the political career of Utah's most powerful state senator.
Stuart Adams, the longest-serving Senate president in Utah history, lost his GOP primary earlier this week to a challenger who ran almost entirely on opposing the Stratos data center project in Box Elder County.
Two county commissioners who voted to approve the plans also lost.
One of them said plainly after conceding: “Do I think that the data center vote cost me the election? Yes I do."
That kind of honesty is rare in politics. The voters made themselves impossible to ignore.
The Stratos project, backed by Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank fame and expected to be one of the largest AI data centers in the world, would span 40,000 acres across multiple Utah sites.
Residents weren't against jobs or tax revenue. They were against watching the Great Salt Lake basin get drained and the grid get pushed past its limits so that a billionaire investor could build a monument to artificial intelligence in their backyard.
Adams tried to walk it back in the final weeks of his campaign. It didn't work.
When communities organize and show up, elections turn. Utah just proved it.
Politicians who back these projects over their constituents' objections are making a bet. Utah shows that bet doesn't always pay off.
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