Last month, a 160-acre data center campus in Glendale, Arizona, moved a step closer to approval despite local pushback. Across much of Massachusetts, towns still won't let you build a single-family home on less than an acre. And in Florida, local mayors are bracing for a property tax cut that could blow holes in their budgets for police, fire and parks.
On Tuesday, voters get a say in all of it.
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Control of Congress will dominate coverage of Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections. For commercial real estate, though, most of the stakes are closer to home: the nine governor's races Bisnow is tracking in its markets, plus dozens of mayoral contests, utility board seats and ballot measures that will help decide where data centers get built, how much housing goes up and who pays for it.
Data centers have become the campaign's favorite villain. Candidates and their allies spent $86.5M on TV ads attacking the industry from July through September alone. Politicians who once courted the sector now run against it. In Arizona, a former state lawmaker who backed data center tax breaks is campaigning against the facilities in a swing congressional district, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has gone from booster to regulator.
The fights that matter most are playing out in statehouses and on obscure boards like Georgia's Public Service Commission, where two seats could decide how a nearly 20-gigawatt data center pipeline gets powered.
Housing is the other fault line. With 80% of Americans worried about affordability, nearly every gubernatorial candidate in a competitive race is running on it. Voters will weigh fast-tracking environmental review in California, scrapping large-lot zoning in Massachusetts, and a property tax cut in Florida that could hurt Miami’s in-migration. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is asking voters to collapse 40 construction approvals into one.
Below is every race and measure Bisnow is tracking with CRE stakes, market by market.
ARIZONA
Phoenix has emerged as a hot spot for data center development, home to 149 of Arizona’s 160 facilities, and just last month, a 160-acre planned campus in the West Valley moved closer to approval. As citizens increasingly raise concerns about their negative impacts, the gubernatorial race could determine what that landscape looks like going forward.
Whether Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs or Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs wins, a moratorium is likely off the table, despite calls for it from lower levels of government.
Hobbs signed a budget bill in June that imposed a three-year freeze on new sales tax breaks for the facilities. Two months later, Attorney General Kris Mayes, also running for reelection, called for a statewide pause on data centers. But Hobbs said a moratorium isn’t a way forward for the state.
“I think there are places where data centers make sense, and they're an important part of the high-tech economy that we're growing here,” she said in September, according to ABC.
Biggs has said local communities should have the final say on data center moratoriums.
Former state Rep. Amish Shah supported tax breaks for data centers in the past, but now he is running on opposing the facilities in a bid to win over voters. Shah faces Republican candidate Jay Feely for Arizona's 1st Congressional District seat, one of a handful of races that could decide which party controls the House.
CALIFORNIA
Californians are voting on Proposition 45, which will decide whether to set timelines for environmental reviews and approvals on eligible “essential” projects, including roads, housing, schools, transportation and broadband internet. It would also set a deadline for courts to make decisions on applicant challenges to unfavorable decisions on these projects. If passed, it could have big implications for multifamily projects across California.
The state will also be replacing the termed-out Gavin Newsom with either Democrat Xavier Becerra or Republican Steve Hilton. Both candidates agree affordability is a critical issue facing California but have different plans for tackling the problem, including how they would approach lowering the cost of housing and decreasing developer costs.
In Los Angeles, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass is facing Nithya Raman, a sitting council member and former Bass ally. In her tenure, Bass issued executive directives aimed at streamlining the production of affordable and market-rate housing. Raman, the former chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, has proposed additional tweaks that she says would triple annual housing production of all kinds in the city.
FLORIDA
Florida voters are picking the first new governor since 2019, deciding between Republican candidate Byron Donalds and Democratic candidate David Jolly to succeed Ron DeSantis.
The state’s real estate community is overwhelmingly behind Donalds, who called for the removal of local zoning restraints to boost housing inventory, said the state should seek technology to modernize permitting systems, backs increasing the state’s homestead exemption, and has expressed support for changing Fannie Mae’s condo lending rules.
Jolly has called for greater local control over zoning and development, wants more state investment in affordable housing, and seeks to remove hurricane and wind risk from the private insurance market to help lower premiums.
Florida voters will also vote on Amendment 3, which would significantly cut homeowners' property taxes. If passed, up to $250K would be exempt from property taxes by 2028, compared to the current $50K. It has drawn criticism from localities that could lose millions of dollars, jeopardizing their ability to fund local hospitals, police, fire, parks and water management. South Florida developer and billionaire Jorge Pérez has warned a drastic cut to essential infrastructure funding could threaten Miami’s ability to attract and retain residents.
GEORGIA
In one of the most watched races in the nation, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff faces Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins in a battle largely focused on the economy and taxes. Collins has argued that federal tariff policies are helping to reshore domestic manufacturing, while Ossoff has criticized the president’s tax bill as benefiting the wealthy only. Polls show Ossoff with a comfortable lead over Collins.
However, the race to replace Gov. Brian Kemp seems to be a toss-up. Healthcare staffing executive Rick Jackson is running as a Republican against former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in a race that has focused on housing affordability and healthcare costs. Jackson has outraised Bottoms in campaign contributions from commercial real estate executives.
While normally a largely ignored race, the election for two of the five seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission has caught national attention. The board, which approves utility rates and utility capital projects, was controlled by Republicans for nearly two decades until two Democrats unseated incumbents. While Peter Hubbard is defending his year-old seat against Republican Fitz Johnson — who lost to Hubbard last year — Shelia Edwards is vying for a seat against Republican Josh Tolbert. If both Hubbard and Edwards prevail, Democrats will have the majority of the board seats, which could make it more difficult for Georgia Power to dole out big electrical contracts to data center users.
ILLINOIS
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Cook County, which encompasses Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, will have a new assessor after Lyons Township Assessor Pat Hynes unseated two-term incumbent Fritz Kaegi in the March Democratic primary. Hynes is expected to win against Libertarian challenger Nico Tsatsoulis in the general election, and real estate professionals will be paying attention to Hynes’ ability to stabilize volatile property taxes that they say discourage investment in the area.
Several nonbinding referendums related to data center development are on the ballot in counties across Illinois. If they pass, they will provide a clear signal to data center developers about which municipalities may not be worth the trouble to try to develop in.
Incumbent Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker is widely expected to land a third term atop the Land of Lincoln in his rematch of the 2022 election against Republican Darren Bailey. Pritzker paused data center tax credits earlier this year and has been lukewarm on giving public money to build a new stadium for the Chicago Bears in Illinois. Pritzker has also backed the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, a big bet on a nascent industry in the state, and he announced plans Oct. 29 to invest $156M in a housing initiative targeted at the state's housing shortage and improving affordability.
MASSACHUSETTS
Gov. Maura Healey is facing off against Republican challenger Mike Minogue, and the Democratic incumbent held a 28-point lead in the latest poll. Since taking office in 2023, Healey has made housing development a top priority. Her administration has spearheaded several bills meant to spur more production, including a $5.2B housing bond bill, and it has enforced the transit-oriented housing development law passed under the prior administration. Healey has also tightened rules around data center development, requiring developers to reach an agreement with local communities before obtaining permits for development.
Massachusetts voters will also decide whether the state should change zoning requirements for single-family lot sizes. Today, many cities and towns in the state require single-family homes to be built on at least an acre. The ballot question would forbid such requirements and would set a new statewide minimum lot size of 5K SF — roughly one-eighth of an acre. Proponents say allowing houses to be built on smaller lots would spur construction of more affordable starter homes and help address the state’s housing shortage. Those against the measure are worried it will dramatically change their neighborhoods through new development.
NEW YORK
Gov. Kathy Hochul holds a double-digit lead — and financial support from commercial real estate titans — over Republican Bruce Blakeman in New York’s gubernatorial race.
The more pressing issues for real estate Tuesday will be ways to slash red tape. Five ballot questions have the potential to amend New York City’s charter, and four of those would cut out processes the Mamdani administration has pinpointed as making it harder to do business.
Ballot Proposal 1 would accelerate the timeline for changing the use of public space, including for outdoor dining, benches and ramps. The measure would modernize public notice requirements and remove a public hearing requirement, which could cut the outdoor dining application process down from an average of eight months to two.
Ballot Proposal 2 would reform the city contracting process, including by simplifying the application questionnaire and streamlining the public review process. It would also allow the mayor to delegate some contract approvals to other agency officials.
Ballot Proposal 3 would streamline the way the city uses its own land. The sale or lease of smaller city-owned lots would go through a shorter review process. The measure would also remove hearing requirements and approvals for the city’s acquisition or leasing of office space.
Ballot Proposal 4 would create a single system, overseen by the Department of Buildings, for all construction permits. This would centralize 40 approvals from 18 separate offices and agencies into one place.
Ballot Proposal 5 would set contribution goals for the city’s rainy day fund at 12% of the previous year’s tax revenue. Currently, the fund has $2B, or just 2% of last year’s revenue.
PENNSYLVANIA
Shapiro, the incumbent Democratic governor, has a large polling advantage over his Republican challenger, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity. Last year, Shapiro threw his support behind data centers as a source of tax revenue, but he has since cooled on the sector and issued a somewhat restrictive executive order targeting the industry in August.
Shapiro has also sought to make the state more business-friendly with the Fast Track permitting program, which has helped bring several high-profile biopharmaceutical and industrial projects to Pennsylvania, particularly in the Lehigh Valley. The governor has also focused on the state’s housing shortage and efforts to spur new production. He debuted a $1B slate of proposals on that front in February, including eliminating entitlement red tape and beefing up renter protections. Those plans fielded a mixed reaction from the state’s CRE trade groups.
TEXAS
One of the most closely watched Senate races is the faceoff between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. They have unveiled opposing plans to regulate data centers, a critical issue for Texas, which has surpassed Virginia as the top state for development.
Paxton has largely backed the governor’s data center development control plan, which still allows projects to move forward. But Paxton has upped his public criticism of artificial intelligence companies and data center developers in recent weeks. Talarico has called for tighter data center regulations and said their construction shouldn’t be allowed to contribute to the state’s affordability crisis.
Data centers are also a critical issue in the state’s gubernatorial election, in which Republican Greg Abbott is seeking his fourth term against Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Both candidates support ending tax breaks for data centers. Abbott has ordered a permitting pause while state agencies complete an audit of existing projects. Hinojosa has called for a moratorium on development.
On housing affordability, Abbott wants to reduce property tax burdens and limit regulation. Hinojosa has proposed stopping private equity firms from buying single-family homes, increasing public investment, and policies intended to make housing costs more manageable.
At the local level, the most populous county in Texas will get a new top political figure for the first time since 2019.
The candidates for Harris County judge are former Houston City Council Member Letitia Plummer, a Democrat, and former Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez, a Republican. Both candidates have made flood control and affordability a priority, with Plummer pledging to stop property tax increases. Sanchez wants to lower costs and complete taxpayer-funded projects, including already approved flood mitigation projects.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Janeese Lewis George is expected to become D.C.'s first new mayor in 12 years, teeing up a progressive shift in the leadership of the city. The D.C. Council member has a slate of housing policy priorities aimed at protecting tenants and stabilizing rent, though she hasn’t yet offered specifics on how she will accomplish those goals. She hosted eight listening sessions with residents between September and October.
Lewis George has said she is committed to building 72,000 homes in five years, reforming zoning restrictions and streamlining the permitting process. She also wants to preserve affordable housing and expand homeownership. She has already expressed concerns about a proposed $550M thermal bathing retreat that would anchor a site she believes should prioritize housing creation.
Some commercial real estate groups and pro-housing advocates have had their doubts about Lewis George. When she won the Democratic primary in June, at least one advocacy group said it was concerned about whether her proposals were viable.
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