Ken Paxton Just Unveiled a Plan for the One Industry Making Texans Most Furious

Donald Trump personally endorsed Ken Paxton and helped bury John Cornyn in this year's Senate primary.

Now Paxton has waded into one of the angriest fights brewing in Texas over AI data centers.

His plan puts him a step ahead of allies who still call that boom an easy win.

Paxton Rolls Out a Four Point Plan to Rein in AI Data Centers

Ken Paxton is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, and this week he stopped talking about Cornyn long enough to pick a new target – the AI data center boom swallowing up his state.

His campaign unveiled a four-point plan.

Push federal legislation banning Chinese technology from AI data center facilities operating on American soil.

Attach criminal liability to data centers that power AI chatbots causing harm to children.

Back Gov. Greg Abbott's statewide pause on new data center grid connections until regulators finish an audit of power and water use.

Stop short – for now – of demanding an outright moratorium on new construction.

"Texans deserve a fighter to lead and represent them as we address the growing presence of data centers," Paxton said, adding that he wants to make sure the facilities are "not utilized to power AI platforms that endanger our children."

Abbott Already Hit the Brakes and Found Out Why

Paxton didn't invent this fight. Abbott started it.

The governor froze new grid-connection approvals earlier this month and ordered ERCOT and Texas utility regulators to run a full audit of pending data center projects.

His office found fewer than one in ten companies had bothered complying with existing reporting rules on how much power and water their facilities were actually pulling.

Abbott's own words explain why he flipped from data center booster to skeptic: "If you're a data center and you want to operate in Texas, you have to first get the approval of those in local communities."

Texans didn't wait for Abbott to catch up.

Planning meetings across the state have been packed for months with residents furious over strained power grids, draining aquifers, and construction noise next to their neighborhoods.

Nationally, opposition to data centers being built near people's homes jumped from 42 percent to 63 percent in just seven months, according to Emerson College polling of likely 2026 voters – a number too big for either party to ignore heading into next year's midterms.

Someone in Trump's Ear Hasn't Caught Up to What Texans Are Living Through

Here's the one wrinkle in Paxton's plan.

Trump himself called the Abbott-style crackdown an economic "mistake" – a reminder that some in his administration still believe AI infrastructure is an unqualified manufacturing win for the country, full stop.

They're not wrong about the big picture. Trump's instincts on reshoring American tech dominance have been right again and again.

But not all of Trump's own allies agree with that read on data centers specifically, and on this one issue, in this one state, whoever has his ear hasn't caught up to what Texans are actually living through in the deep-red counties that voted for him twice.

Paxton and Abbott are the ones standing closest to that anger, and they're responding to it instead of arguing with it.

Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser put words to why the whole party is drifting this direction: Republicans are increasingly ready to "cut bait" on an industry that's become more of a political liability than a talking point.

Every Republican running in a competitive race this cycle, from Ohio to Pennsylvania, is watching Texas to see how this plays out – because if data centers are souring Trump-country voters in deep-red Texas, no incumbent anywhere is immune from the same backlash.

Paxton isn't defying Trump here so much as catching up to Texans faster than Washington has.

Sources:

• Nolan D. McCaskill, "Ken Paxton Unveils Plan to Prevent 'Negative Impact' of AI Data Centers on Texas," Breitbart, August 25, 2026.
• Jeff Mordock, "Texas AG Paxton unveils data center restrictions he plans to pursue if elected to Senate," Just The News, August 25, 2026.
• Office of the Texas Governor, "Governor Abbott Directs Comprehensive Data Center Audit," Texas Governor Press Release, August 2026.
• Newsweek Staff, "Americans Are Increasingly Turning on Data Centers," Newsweek, August 2026.