Boulder City voters rejected data centers on city land but re-elected leaders who had been open to the idea

What happened in Boulder City

Boulder City voters turned down Question 1 on Election Day, a measure that would have allowed data centers on city-owned land in the Eldorado Valley, The Nevada Independent reported. Nearly 71 percent voted no, a margin that outperformed statewide ballot questions on abortion rights and voter ID, according to the outlet.

Question 1 covered roughly 14,000 acres where the city already leases land for solar, battery storage and a natural gas plant. Supporters said the city needs new revenue as its solar leases expire. Opponents pointed to water and power concerns.

A separate fight over federal land

The vote followed months of resident pushback over a different data center proposed on federal land within city limits. The Bureau of Land Management approved that project in June, the city appealed, and a federal appeals board threw out the approval in October, according to The Nevada Independent. On the same ballot, voters narrowly approved a separate measure giving the city more room to spend land lease money it already collects.

Voters kept their incumbents

The same voters comfortably re-elected Mayor Joe Hardy, who told The Nevada Independent in May that revenue was the reason he was open to a data center. Hardy beat challenger Brent Foutz, who took no public position on data centers, with about 77 percent of the vote. Hardy voted with the council majority to put the question on the ballot and did not respond to a request for comment.

Council race results

Incumbents Steve Walton and Cokie Booth finished first and second for two at-large council seats. Neither took a clear position on data centers in a Boulder City Review questionnaire, though Walton voted to put Question 1 on the ballot and Booth cast the lone vote against it. Adam Schultheis, who made opposing data centers the center of his campaign, finished third, and Chris Gatlin, who said any data center would need strict limits on water and power use, finished fourth.

Schultheis said many residents he met while knocking on doors did not know council members had been open to a data center. "I'm not against data centers per se. I'm against them in the Southwest, where the water element is huge," he told The Nevada Independent.

Why the split

UNLV political science professor David Damore told the outlet the gap likely came down to information, since Hardy is well known in town and nonpartisan races give voters no party label. He said Boulder City has long guarded its independence, and many residents likely saw data center proposals as an encroachment. Damore also said a data center pitched by a solar developer in a city built around renewable energy likely left a bad taste.

How the issue played statewide

The data center vote did not hurt Gov. Joe Lombardo in Boulder City. He won about 67 percent of the two-party vote in the city's four precincts, slightly better than in 2022, even as his share across Clark County fell by about 5 percentage points, according to a Nevada Independent analysis of official precinct results. Gov.-elect Aaron Ford won the race by nearly 8 percentage points, according to unofficial results.

Exit polling found a quarter of Nevada voters called data centers a crucial factor in their vote, and those voters backed Ford over Lombardo by more than 2 to 1. Sixty-nine percent of Nevada voters in the survey opposed building a new data center in their community. Damore said he has not seen evidence that data centers drove turnout, but called the topic "the perfect populist issue at the perfect populist moment."

There are more than 80 data centers operating, under construction or planned in Nevada, according to a tracker from More Than Just Parks, a group focused on protecting public lands. For more on this year's races, see our Nevada elections coverage.

What to watch next

• The Legislature convenes Feb. 1 with Democrats in control of both chambers and the governor's office.
• Gov.-elect Aaron Ford has promised to pause new data center tax abatements.
• State Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas) has said she plans to introduce a bill in 2027 to repeal data center tax breaks and impose a moratorium on new projects.
• State Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro has requested a bill requiring environmental reviews, closed-loop cooling, public reporting of water and power use, and a resident say in where data centers are built.