US Midterm Elections Approach: How Swing State Races and State Ballot Measures Are Shaping AI Compute Infrastructure

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As the U.S. midterm election voting day (November 3) approaches, market attention is shifting more toward the struggles in the U.S. political arena.

This election will re-elect all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 seats in the Senate; in addition, 36 states will hold gubernatorial elections.

Note: Light blue and orange indicate the 35 seats contested in this midterm election; the Democratic Party (light blue) and the Republican Party (orange) currently hold 13 and 22 seats, respectively.

This election will not only determine control of both chambers of Congress in the future, but will also profoundly affect the room for advancing the Trump administration's subsequent policies.

At present, based on a combination of national polls, local race conditions in swing states, and early voting data, Democrats hold the upper hand in multiple polls.

But considering that past U.S. polls have had no shortage of "flip" records, and that national polls cannot be directly equated with congressional seat outcomes, the actual contest in key swing states is the core factor determining victory or defeat.

Therefore, the actual situation of this election will likely be far more complex than what the poll results suggest.

Do Democrats appear to have victory in the bag?

Looking at U.S. national-level polling data, surveys by multiple organizations all show that Democrats are winning more favor from voters:

The RealClearPolling polling average shows Democrats at 51.5% support and Republicans at 43.1%;

The THP/MM poll (October 28-29) shows Democrats at 54% support and Republicans at 41%;

The NBS poll of November 1 shows Democrats at 52% support and Republicans at 45% support;

The PBS News/NPR/Marist poll shows that 52% of voters are inclined to vote for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district, while Republican candidates have the support of 44% of voters.

Political analyst Natalie Jackson said that behind the improving poll numbers is voters' dissatisfaction with Trump's governing performance and high prices: "As tariff policies and the Iran war push up the cost of living, many people believe that Republicans have failed over the past two years to deliver on campaign promises, and the public opinion environment is relatively favorable to Democrats."

Do not be easily "misled" by poll results

According to the current multiple polls, Democrats can easily cross the threshold of 218 seats needed to take control of the House; at the Senate level, Democrats and Republicans are tied or Democrats hold a slight lead.

However, multiple election experts warn that national polls can only reflect overall public opinion trends and cannot be directly converted into congressional seats. Election results are also constrained by multiple factors, including incumbency advantage, candidates' personal abilities, local issues, redistricting, and voter turnout patterns.

In addition, looking back at U.S. election history, cases of polls "flipping" are common: in the 2016 and 2024 U.S. elections, Trump's actual election performance ultimately exceeded poll expectations; in some states' party primaries, polls have also greatly overestimated one side, with the final result showing a wide gap.

Clifford Young, president of public affairs at polling firm Ipsos, pointed out that conducting polls in the United States is becoming increasingly difficult because more and more Americans refuse to answer calls from unknown numbers; conservatives and far-right groups in particular generally resist calls from polling organizations, so there is a risk that Republican supporters are systematically underestimated.

Republican strategist Doug Heye also cited the huge error in the 2024 Iowa poll as an example, reminding the market not to blindly trust poll numbers. Even if Democrats lead in national polls, in some closely contested Senate races, polling errors could still reverse the final result.

Early voting data hit a record

So far, the number of early voters in this midterm election has hit a historic high, and voting enthusiasm is high in multiple key states with competitive Senate and House races.

North Carolina, Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia have all set new state records for early voting in midterm elections; early voting numbers in Maine, Kansas, and Michigan are up more than 30% compared with the 2022 midterm elections.

Statistics from the University of Florida Election Lab show that among early ballots already cast, Democratic voters account for 43%, Republicans 31%, and independent voters 25%. The gap is even more exaggerated in North Carolina—among voters there who have completed early voting, Democrats number more than 1 million, while Republicans number 679,000.

University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald analyzed that Democrats' high participation in early voting can, to a certain extent, be regarded as voters' "referendum-style statement" on the Trump administration.

Emory University political science professor Bernard Fraga added that Democratic voters' enthusiasm for participating in the election is significantly higher than that of Republicans, indicating that some loyal Republican voters are also weary of the current state of the U.S. economy and are not strongly inclined to vote.

But experts also remind that early voting data does not equal the final election result. Looking back at U.S. history, there has long been a clear divergence in voting habits in the United States: Democratic voters prefer early voting, while a large number of Republican supporters are accustomed to voting in person on Election Day, so the final outcome cannot be directly predicted solely from the share of early votes.

The key swing states on the ground become the deciding factor

Compared with the House race situation, which appears "one-sided" in the polls, the battle for Senate control seems to be much fiercer. The outcome of this Senate election will depend heavily on the race conditions in a group of swing states, and in most states the gap between the two sides in polls is within the margin of polling error.

The well-known U.S. election forecasting institution Cook Political Report currently lists seven Senate seats as toss-ups: Alaska, Ohio, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas.

At the same time, polling shows that states such as North Carolina, Nebraska, and Minnesota are also highly competitive, with the two sides very close in some races and the results uncertain.

Below are the latest YouGov survey data on support in these states' Senate races. Overall, the Democrats' polling numbers appear to have the advantage, but the lead is limited.

Alaska: former Democratic Representative Mary Peltola 50%, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan 43%;

Ohio: Democrat Josh Turek 50%, Republican Ashley Hinson 49%;

Kansas: YouGov poll, Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton 50%, Republican incumbent Senator Roger Marshall 49%;

Maine: Democrat Troy Jackson 52%, Republican Senator Susan Collins 47%;

Michigan: Democrat Abdul El Sayed 51%, Republican Mike Rogers 47%;

Ohio: Democrat Sherrod Brown 50%, Republican Jon Husted 48%;

Texas: Democrat James Talarico 48.5%, Republican Ken Paxton 46.3%;

Nebraska: Republican Senator Pete Ricketts and independent candidate Dan Osborn are tied at 49% to 49%;

North Carolina: former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper 52%, Republican Michael Whatley 39%;

Minnesota: Democratic Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan 54%, Republican Michele Tafoya 40%.

What else deserves special attention?

In addition to the key swing states above that may decide the Senate race, for U.S. stock investors there are also a number of governor and state legislator seats as well as state-level ballot propositions that will profoundly affect AI computing infrastructure and the operating environment for tech giants, and these deserve special attention.

First is Ohio. Ohio already hosts the 8-gigawatt large AI data center campus project that SoftBank has planned for OpenAI—a core pillar of AI computing capacity deployment in the central United States—and the results of this state's governor and Senate elections will determine the fate of that project.

In fact, control over data center construction has become a core battleground between the two parties' candidates in Ohio. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton advocates promoting a conditional moratorium on data center construction, while Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy takes a more aggressive stance, declaring that on his first day in office he will sign an executive order halting approval of all new data center projects and requiring data centers to provide free electricity to nearby residents before the approval channel can be reopened.

The situation in Texas is similar. Currently, Texas is the most important data center hub in the United States and even the world, with data centers under construction and in operation totaling about 26 gigawatts; Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Oracle's Stargate mega computing project are all deployed here, and the state aims to grow into the world's largest data center market by 2030.

However, the growth of data centers has already caused local residents to face soaring living costs for water and electricity, triggering strong public dissatisfaction.

In August of this year, the state's current Republican Governor Greg Abbott already took action, suspending grid connection and environmental permit approvals for new data centers in the state, effectively temporarily freezing new data center construction there, but his Democratic opponent Gina Hinojosa believes the moratorium is just an election gimmick and has proposed a broader plan for a comprehensive moratorium on data center development.

In addition, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Mexico also face similar situations: as local residents worry about rising electricity prices, water consumption, and land use, public sentiment has clearly reversed, and a large number of policies restricting data centers are emerging from the bottom up.

The "Proposition 40" ballot measure also deserves attention

In addition to the elections for state legislators and governors, in this election California voters will also directly vote on Proposition 40—which will also determine the future direction of the state's business environment.

Proposition 40 is a state constitutional amendment that would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires residing in California as of January 1, 2026, with net assets exceeding $1 billion. The referendum on this proposition is also the first state-level wealth tax referendum in the United States.

This proposition directly hits the founders of a large number of Silicon Valley tech giants such as Meta and Google. Take Meta as an example: if the proposition takes effect, the company's CEO Zuckerberg will face a tax bill of tens of billions of dollars. To avoid the risk of this proposition in advance, Meta has already issued new shares to protect Zuckerberg's voting rights, in case he is forced to sell stock to pay the tax.

Overall, current polls and early voting results both show that Democrats appear to have the upper hand in this midterm election, but historical lessons remind the outside world that midterm elections remain full of uncertainty, and at the same time, the results in many key states may become the deciding factor affecting market sentiment.

(Source: Cailian Press) Mid-body of the article embedded advertisement