Oregon voters overwhelmingly oppose tax breaks for AI data centers and support a temporary construction moratorium, according to a new poll released Tuesday, Aug. 4. The findings land squarely in Hillsboro's corner, where the City Council enacted its own 120-day moratorium just eight days earlier.

The DHM Research poll surveyed 600 Oregon voters between July 23 and July 28 and carries a margin of error of 4 percentage points. Voters opposed new data center tax breaks by more than 3-to-1 and supported a temporary moratorium on new AI data center construction by roughly 2-to-1, OregonLive reported.

"Support for data centers collapsed," DHM senior vice president John Horvick told Willamette Week.

The opposition crosses party lines. Eighty-four percent of Democrats and 54% of Republicans oppose data center tax breaks. On the moratorium question, 77% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans support a temporary halt.

Hillsboro at the center

Hillsboro hosts 436 acres of operating data centers with another 50 acres under construction. The industry received roughly $84 million in local property tax breaks this year, and statewide, data center operators are collecting more than $450 million in incentives, according to OregonLive. Those tax breaks are larger than those awarded to any other industry in Oregon.

The Hillsboro City Council voted unanimously July 27 to freeze new data center and battery energy storage approvals until at least Nov. 24. Council President Rob Harris said at the July 27 meeting that the council filed its moratorium application quietly to prevent a rush of new applications.

"We filed the application, tried to keep it on the lowkey and did not talk about it on city council," Harris said. "We did not want a bunch of new data center development applications to be filed before we had the opportunity to have this hearing."

State committee prepares draft findings

The poll arrived the same day Gov. Tina Kotek's Data Center Advisory Committee held its seventh all-day meeting, devoted to summarizing nearly six months of research into Oregon's data center industry. The committee, created in January to evaluate data centers' electricity and water consumption, land use and public incentives, did not appear to have seen the poll during its session, OregonLive reported.

Committee co-chair Michael Jung, an Oregon environmental policy executive, signaled the group is looking for incremental fixes rather than sweeping new policy. "There needs to be a better deal," Jung said at the Aug. 4 meeting. "When it comes to data centers and the way that they fit into our incentive structures and in our economic system, there needs to be an upgrade."

The committee has received 700 public comments, with energy use, affordability and tax breaks the most-raised issues. Members agreed the Oregon POWER Act, which requires data centers to pay the cost of meeting their electricity needs, appears to be working well. That law triggered a 30% electricity rate increase for large data centers served by Portland General Electric.

But the committee appeared split on whether tax breaks are too large, with no consensus on whether development should slow. Umatilla County Commission Chair Dan Dorran, a committee member, pushed back on singling out data centers: "We abate taxes for the semiconductor business industry. We do it for a lot of industries."

The advisory committee plans to issue draft findings in September, followed by 30 days of public comment and a final report in October ahead of November's statewide election and the 2027 legislative session. A final public meeting is scheduled for Sept. 23.

Separately, four Democratic state legislators and two candidates, including Hillsboro's Myrna Muñoz, called Aug. 4 for a three-year statewide moratorium on new large data centers, to be proposed in the 2027 session, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Locally, Hillsboro's Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a public hearing on data center code amendments Aug. 26. The City Council's first reading of proposed amendments is set for Sept. 15, with possible adoption by Oct. 6.