UMBC poll: 78% of likely voters asked oppose building data centers in Maryland

Seventy-eight percent of Maryland likely voters asked about building data centers in the state opposed it, according to a University of Maryland, Baltimore County poll. In a separate question, 77% opposed a data center being built near their community.

The questions went to different randomly assigned groups, so the results are separate estimates, not answers from all 776 respondents to the same question. Of the 370 likely voters asked about construction in Maryland, 13% supported it. Of the 406 asked about a nearby facility, 16% supported it.

UMBC’s Institute of Politics released the findings Oct. 8, 2026, as the final installment of its October pre-election poll. The survey interviewed 776 Maryland likely voters from Sept. 22 to 27. It measures likely voters’ views, not the opinions of every Maryland resident.

Voters expect negative effects across seven areas

In a separate set of questions, more respondents expected new data centers to have mostly negative than mostly positive effects in every area asked about:

The largest gaps between negative and positive expectations concerned household electricity costs and quality of life near data-center sites. Views on jobs were less one-sided, although negative expectations were still more common. These figures describe respondents’ expectations; they do not measure or forecast actual effects on bills, environmental conditions, employment, the economy or public revenue.

Economic views and survey methods

The poll also found that 81% rated Maryland’s economic conditions over the prior year as poor or fair, while 17% rated them good or excellent. The poor-or-fair figure was 76% in March 2026, 69% in October 2025, 67% in February 2025 and 66% in October 2024. UMBC noted that those earlier polls surveyed all Maryland adults, while the current poll surveyed likely voters, so the groups are not identical.

On Maryland’s direction, 49% said the state was on the wrong track and 37% said it was headed in the right direction. Gov. Wes Moore’s job performance received 49% approval, 42% disapproval and 8% unsure. In March 2026, approval was 48% and disapproval was 42%; those earlier results also came from a poll of all adults.

The survey used live interviewers and text-to-web interviews. The Part 3 report gives an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points and cautions that subgroup margins are higher and non-sampling error is possible. UMBC’s poll landing page displays a different overall margin, plus or minus 3.8 points. Neither overall figure is the margin for the smaller groups asked the data-center questions.