(The Center Square) – Wisconsin voters continue to believe the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits and also said data centers were the least desirable of five development options and that state tax incentives reward companies that don’t pay their fair share in a new poll of registered voters in the state.
The poll showed 54% of voters believe state incentives reward companies that don’t pay their fair share while 45% believe that the economic benefits of state incentives for business are worth the cost.
When it comes to data centers specifically, however, 74% of Wisconsin voters said that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits, down from 78% who said the same last month in the Marquette Law School Poll.
The Marquette Poll was conducted Sept. 16-23, interviewing 843 Wisconsin registered voters, with margin of error of +/-4.3 percentage points. For likely voters, the sample size is 692 with a margin of error of +/-4.8 percentage points.
The September poll expanded what it asked about data centers and development in September, with just 9% of voters saying data centers were the most desirable of large-scale developments they would like to see in their area with none of the five (44%), a semiconductor fabrication plant (33%), an e-commerce fulfillment center (27%), an automobile manufacturing plant (24%) and a steel or aluminum mill (14%) all more desirable. Respondents could choose more than one option on what they would like to see.
The poll showed 49% of registered voters felt that new manufacturing and commerce developments were very important for jobs while 43% said they were somewhat important while 61% felt that unfairness favoring the wealthy was a larger problem than over-regulation.