‘Like being hit between the eyes with a sledgehammer’: Meet the one town in America that defied election trends and voted in favor of data centers

About 75% of Harwood voters (325 of 430) opposed a measure that would have imposed additional review and approval requirements on large industrial projects, including data centers. The vote leaves construction of Applied Digital’s 160-acre data center, with Oracle as end-user, unimpeded by the proposed charter amendment; the site could expand to 900 acres. Harwood’s mayor said the project would generate $1.65 million in taxes by 2028, while residents raised concerns about community input, noise and potential long-term effects.

Analysis

Harwood’s vote is a local execution positive for Applied Digital, but not evidence that US communities have become broadly more receptive to data centers. The useful signal is narrower: where voters perceive near-term tax benefits and fear added household costs, economic dependence can outweigh process and environmental concerns. That makes community acceptance contingent on who bears power, infrastructure, and tax costs—not a durable political tailwind.

For Applied Digital, the vote modestly lowers near-term risk of a local rule change obstructing this project. It does not settle noise, utility-capacity, or future-expansion disputes; a potential campus expansion could reopen opposition as impacts become more visible. Any benefit to Oracle is second-order and cannot be sized from the article: the project’s operational timing and contribution to Oracle’s broader capacity or financials need verification.

Over the next 1–3 months, watch for local permitting, utility arrangements, and evidence of construction progress; over 6–18 months, watch whether expansion plans trigger renewed hearings, litigation, or broader restrictions. The contrarian point: the vote may be read as a pro-data-center mandate when it may instead reflect concern about affordability and lost tax revenue. APLD’s broader permitting risk remains exposed to energy-cost pressure and organized local opposition. No directional trade is justified from one small-town vote without project-level economics and financing/capacity data.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Treat the vote as a modest, project-specific de-risking signal for APLD, not a reason to re-rate the wider data-center sector.
• Keep ORCL exposure thesis-led by its overall capacity and financial disclosures; do not attribute material earnings upside to this project absent disclosed scale and timing.
• Set an APLD watch item for verified construction milestones, utility-power arrangements, and any formal expansion or permit filings; renewed opposition or delays would falsify the near-term de-risking view.
• Avoid a standalone APLD/ORCL pair trade on this news. Reassess only when project economics, power availability, and the schedule for commercial operation are independently clearer.