New Jersey voters don’t want to make it easier to build warehouses or data centers, but not because of concerns about electricity prices. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll in partnership IUOE Local 825 International Union of Operating Engineers, voters want to see more power plants and middle class housing, with opposition to data centers being driven most strongly by attitudes about AI programs.

“We’ve seen concerns about both electricity prices and data centers increasing at the same time, so it’s been natural to assume that one is driving the other,” said Dan Cassino, a Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the Executive Director of the FDU Poll. “But it’s attitudes about big tech companies and AI that are driving views about data centers much more than electricity prices.”

In the survey, voters were asked about whether New Jersey should make it easier to build, or not easier to build, various kinds of developments in the state. Seventy-nine percent said that they would like it to be easier to build middle class housing, and power generation facilities (solar and wind at 64 percent, and natural gas at 57 percent) were almost as popular. Voters were mixed on warehouses, with 39 percent wanting it to be easier to build, and 41 percent not.

"There is a sea change in New Jersey when it comes to increasing our energy supply with an 'all of the above' approach and building more homes.  Voters in a fully nonpartisan way understand we need more of both to make our state more affordable," said Greg Lalevee, IUOE 825 Business Manager.  "Similarly, voters have a clear view that data centers won't help them based on what they know."

Given the controversies around the construction of data centers in the state, it’s little surprise that only 25 percent of voters wanted to make it easier to build them, with 65 percent opposing. Support for making it easier to build data centers is highest among Republicans and self-identified MAGA voters (41 percent), but even among those groups, most voters aren’t in favor of making it easier to build. While there are other partisan differences – Republicans are more likely to support making it easier to build warehouses, for instance – overall, there is widespread agreement among New Jersey voters about what kinds of development they would like to see, with middle class housing and power plants being popular across the board (though there is disagreement over what kinds of power plants should be built).

“Partisanship matters most when it comes to abstract issues,” said Cassino. “When voters are all looking at the same problems, like unaffordable housing and rising electric bills, the obvious solutions tend to be popular no matter what party you’re coming from.”

In order to identify what was driving these views, the survey included an experiment. Before being asked about making it easier or harder to build these developments, respondents were randomly assigned to get one of three questions, asking about regulation of big tech companies, regulation of AI, or whether their electricity bills had climbed in recent years. The purpose of these questions was to shape the context in which respondents were thinking about data centers, and the results showed that asking about big tech companies or AI regulation significantly changed how some voters saw the issue.

The key comparison is between the group of respondents who were randomly assigned to think about the issue being asked about – AI, or big tech companies, or electricity prices – and those who were both thinking about it and had negative views on the topic. So, for instance, if higher electricity bills make voters oppose data centers, then people who have been primed to think about electricity prices and say that their electricity bill went up should have more negative views about the data centers.

However, there’s just no effect of electricity prices. Among people who were primed to think about electricity prices, 25 percent say that it should be easier to build data centers. Among people who were primed to think about electricity prices and said that their bills had gone up, it was 21 percent, a drop too small to be statistically significant.

But that lack of an effect is in stark contrast to the big tech and AI regulation primes. Respondents who were primed to think about big tech regulation and said that they wanted more regulation were 12 points less likely to say that it should be easier to build data centers (26 percent to 14 percent); among those who said that there should be more regulation of AI, there was a nine-point drop (23 percent to 14 percent).

“People in New Jersey don’t like data centers, but putting it in the context of electric bills doesn’t change anything,” said Cassino. “It’s when people are thinking about data centers in terms of AI and big tech that they really start to turn against them.”

Putting developments in the context of big tech and AI also impacts views of renewable energy plants. Respondents who want greater regulation of big tech companies, and are viewing these developments in that context, are 11 percentage points more likely (66 to 77) to say that it should be easier to build solar and wind plants. The AI regulation prime lead to an eight-point increase (69 to 77).

“The ‘why’ of opposition to data centers is important,” said Cassino. “Data centers think that they can mute opposition by building their own power plants, but the data is showing that won’t be enough, and distrust of big tech companies is a much more important barrier.”

 

Methodology

The FDU Poll is a proud member of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative and is devoted to ensuring that our results are presented in such a way that anyone can quickly and easily get all of the information that they may need to evaluate the validity of our surveys. We believe that transparency is the key to building trust in the work of high-quality public opinion research, and necessary to push our industry forward.

The survey was conducted between October 16 and 22, 2026, using a voter list of registered voters in New Jersey carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Respondents were contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 805 registered voters in the state. Surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews to landlines (132) and cellphones (261) and the remainder (423) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of likely voters in New Jersey, based on the most recent elections (2024 and 2025). The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known parameters of the electorates in these races. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education, region and race/ethnicity. No weights based on partisanship, ideology, or reported past vote were used.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.5, largely driven by the weights used on the race/ethnicity and age variables.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 807 registered voters is +/-3.4 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-5.1 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

 

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

807 Likely Voters in New Jersey

Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.

 

Man

47%                 N = 382
Woman

52%                 N = 419
Some Other Way

1%                  N = 5

 

18-30

15%                N = 120
31-44

20%                 N = 161
45-64

34%                 N = 272
65+

31%                 N = 248

 

White

71%                N = 569
Black

10%                N = 83
Hispanic/Latino/a

9%                  N = 72
Asian

5%                  N = 37
MENA

2%                  N = 19
Other/Multi-racial

2%                  N = 14

 

No college degree

46%                N = 369
College degree or more

53%                N = 430

 

Democrat (including leaners)

49%                N = 394
Independent (no lean)

15%                N = 124
Republican (including leaners)

29%                N = 229

 

Question Wording and Order

P1. Which of the following issues are important to your vote in the upcoming Congressional elections?

Each respondent is randomly assigned to get three of the following six items.

1. Affordability
2. Gas Prices
3. Potential Checks on President Trump’s Power
4. The War in Iran
5. Immigration Policy
6. The status of trans people

Response Options for Each of the Three

1. Important
2. Not Important
3. Don’t Know

P2. How likely are you to vote in the upcoming midterm congressional election?

1. Not at all likely
2. Not very likely
3. Somewhat likely
4. Very likely
5. Or have you already voted?
6. Don’t Know

P3. If you were to vote in the upcoming midterm congressional election, would you vote for the Republican candidate for Congress in your district, the Democratic candidate, [shuffle order of Dem and Rep option] someone else, or are you not sure? [Note: If P2 is 5 (already voted), change wording to “In the upcoming midterm Congressional Election, did you vote for…”]

1. Democratic Candidate
2. Republican Candidate
3. Someone Else
4. Don’t Know

P4. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as President?

1. Approve
2. Disapprove
3. Don’t Know

P5. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Mikie Sherrill is doing as Governor?

1. Approve
2. Disapprove
3. Don’t Know

Before the YIMBY/NIMBY battery, respondents will be randomly assigned to get one of three questions, priming them to think about leaders of big tech companies, AI, or electricity bills (T1, T2 or T3).

We’re going to ask you some questions about making it easier to build certain kinds of projects in New Jersey. But before we do…

T1. In general, do you think the government should do more to regulate the leaders of big tech companies, do less to regulate them, or should the regulations stay about the same?

1. Do More to Regulate
2. Do Less to Regulate
3. Regulations should stay about the same
4. Don’t Know

 

T2. In general, do you think that the government should do more to regulate Artificial Intelligence programs, do less to regulate them, or should the regulations stay about the same?

1. Do More to Regulate
2. Do Less to Regulate
3. Regulations should stay about the same
4. Don’t Know

 

T3. In the past year, has your electricity bill gotten more expensive, gotten less expensive, or stayed about the same?

1. Electricity Bill has gone up
2. Electricity Bill has gone down
3. Electricity Bill has stayed about the same
4. Don’t Know

T4. It has been proposed that New Jersey streamline the permitting process to make it easier to build various types of projects around the state. Would you support or oppose changing the permitting process make it easier to build:

Shuffle order of options, such that data centers is always in the number two slot. Early enough in the series for the priming to work, not so early that it’ll be obvious what we’re doing. Should be set up as a matrix.

1. Warehouses
2. Data Centers
3. Solar and Wind Power Plants
4. Natural Gas Power Plants
5. Middle Class Housing

1. Make it easier to build
   2.  Don’t make it easier to build
   3.  Don’t Know

Further Items Held for Later Release

 

Release Tables

 

Make Easier/Harder to Build
	Easier to Build	Don't Make Easier	Don't Know
Warehouses	39%	41%	20%
Data Centers	25%	65%	11%
Solar and Wind Plants	64%	25%	11%
Natural Gas Plants	57%	24%	19%
Middle Class Housing	79%	13%	8%

 

Make Easier to Build
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
Warehouses	39%	35%	32%	53%
Data Centers	25%	18%	21%	41%
Solar and Wind Plants	64%	80%	57%	44%
Natural Gas Plants	57%	51%	52%	75%
Middle Class Housing	79%	85%	72%	73%

 

Make Easier to Build
	Overall	Liberal	Moderate	Conservative	MAGA
Warehouses	39%	34%	34%	47%	52%
Data Centers	25%	15%	20%	37%	41%
Solar and Wind Plants	64%	81%	66%	44%	24%
Natural Gas Plants	57%	49%	57%	74%	73%
Middle Class Housing	79%	84%	81%	78%	64%

 

Do More to Regulate Big Tech Companies?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
More Regulation	62%	83%	55%	38%
Less Regulation	7%	2%	12%	14%
About the Same	22%	10%	31%	37%
Don't Know	9%	5%	2%	11%

 

Do More to Regulate Artificial Intelligence?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
More Regulation	69%	80%	65%	54%
Less Regulation	6%	3%	13%	10%
About the Same	14%	11%	10%	21%
Don't Know	10%	6%	13%	15%

 

Has Your Electricity Bill Gotten More Expensive, Less Expensive, or Stayed the Same?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
More Expensive	73%	75%	72%	69%
Less Expensive	7%	6%	7%	10%
Stayed the Same	15%	15%	16%	16%
Don't Know	6%	3%	5%	4%

 

Make Easier to Build
	Overall	Big Tech Prime	AI Prime	Electricity Prime
Warehouses	39%	40%	38%	38%
Data Centers	25%	26%	23%	25%
Solar and Wind Plants	64%	66%	69%	57%
Natural Gas Plants	57%	55%	58%	58%
Middle Class Housing	79%	80%	82%	74%

 

[Only those who want more regulation/saw electricity price increase] Make Easier to Build
	Overall	Big Tech Prime	AI Prime	Electricity Prime
Warehouses	35%	37%	31%	38%
Data Centers	16%	14%	14%	21%
Solar and Wind Plants	72%	77%	77%	61%
Natural Gas Plants	55%	53%	53%	60%
Middle Class Housing	82%	87%	86%	74%

 

Don't Make Easier to Build
	Overall	Big Tech Prime	AI Prime	Electricity Prime
Warehouses	41%	43%	44%	38%
Data Centers	65%	64%	67%	63%
Solar and Wind Plants	25%	20%	29%	28%
Natural Gas Plants	24%	28%	23%	21%
Middle Class Housing	13%	14%	12%	15%

 

[Only those who want more regulation/saw electricity price increase] Don't Make Easier to Build
	Overall	Big Tech Prime	AI Prime	Electricity Prime
Warehouses	46%	47%	55%	37%
Data Centers	74%	77%	80%	68%
Solar and Wind Plants	19%	18%	14%	26%
Natural Gas Plants	26%	29%	29%	20%
Middle Class Housing	11%	8%	10%	14%