Public Report
Where Prince George's County Stands on the Data-Center Moratorium
Outcome scorecard — appended July 8, 2026
Council passed the two-year pause. Our pre-vote read pointed the same direction.
On Tuesday, July 7, 2026, the Prince George's County Council passed CR-066-2026, a two-year moratorium on new hyperscale data-center development, after nearly an hour of public testimony and council debate. Before the vote, our synthetic panel read showed 94.9% support for the pause (Question 2). The council acted in the same direction. Council Chair Krystal Oriadha told the chamber: “I think the community has spoken loud and clear.”
Our pre-vote read (Q2)
94.9%
support the two-year pause (18.2% strongly, 76.7% somewhat)
Council outcome (July 7)
Passed
Two-year moratorium adopted (CR-066-2026). Passed with seven votes in favor (The Banner, July 8); one member voted no on the duration (WTOP). Moratorium can lift early if comprehensive legislation passes.
This is a directional civic read, not a probability sample of residents and not a vote-count forecast. No human poll of county opinion existed before the vote. We publish the outcome so the pre-vote numbers can be judged against what happened next.
The Prince George's County Council voted July 7, 2026 to adopt a two-year moratorium on new data centers, after the county's six-month pause expired June 30. No public county-level opinion data existed on the question before our read. This is a same-day synthetic-panel study: 600 simulated respondents demographically matched to the county's census profile, asked seven neutrally-worded questions, fielded the day before the vote. It is a synthetic panel, not a probability sample, and no humans were interviewed.
Headline findings
94.9%
support the two-year pause (18.2% strongly, 76.7% somewhat); 4.7% oppose.
97.8%
would support new data centers if developers paid for their own power infrastructure and funded community benefits.
48.2%
name noise, traffic, and land use as their top concern; only 2.0% name losing tax revenue and jobs.
51.3%
say data centers mostly bring tax revenue and jobs — yet still support the pause. This is a 'not like this,' not a 'never.'
91.8%
say a candidate's data-center position will matter at least somewhat to their next county-election vote.
Audience & methodology
Exactly what was simulated
Audience
Simulated respondents demographically matched to Prince George's County, MD census profile
Panel size
n=600 synthetic respondents; all 600 completed all 7 questions
Fielded
July 6, 2026, 12:06–12:08 PM ET
Model
Lewis v17 (production inference endpoint)
Respondents were generated to match Prince George's County marginals (the census-weighted mechanism Lewsearch uses for regional audiences), then polled through the production pipeline: per-respondent option-order rotation to prevent position bias, floor calibration, and Dirichlet-ODIR calibration — identical to a customer study. Prince George's County is not one of our benchmarked live panels, so this read is labeled directional: lean on the large, consistent margins, not single-point precision.
Race/ethnicity
Black 58% · Hispanic 20% · White (NH) 11% · Asian 5% · Other 6% (Census QuickFacts V2024)
Age (18+)
18–34: 29% · 35–54: 34% · 55–64: 17% · 65+: 20% (ACS 2024 1-yr)
Housing
Homeowners 62% · Renters 38% (Census QuickFacts V2024)
Income
Under $50k: 23% · $50–100k: 27% · $100–150k: 21% · $150k+: 29% (ACS 2024 1-yr)
Education (25+)
HS or less: 39% · Some college/assoc.: 24% · Bachelor's: 20% · Postgrad: 17% (ACS 2024 1-yr)
Party lean
Modeled prior (not census): ~68% Dem-leaning, ~14% independent, ~12% Rep-leaning — anchored to the county's 2024 presidential result (85.9% D) and 74% Democratic registration
On benchmarked panels this pipeline achieves 7.47% pooled mean absolute error across 460 cross-validated questions vs. Pew, Gallup, PPIC, UT/Texas Politics Project, and official election results (10.68% on a fully held-out set). MAE is an average error, not a sampling margin.
Full results — question wording shown verbatim
Question 1 · asked verbatim · n=600
“How closely have you been following the debate over data centers in Prince George's County?”
Very closely
7.2%
Somewhat closely
68.8%
Not too closely
22.3%
Not at all closely
1.7%
Notable splits (directional)
- Attention rises sharply with income: 88% of $150k+ households follow the debate at least somewhat closely vs. 19% of under-$25k households.
Question 2 · asked verbatim · n=600
“The Prince George's County Council is considering a two-year pause on new data centers in the county. Do you support or oppose this pause?”
Strongly support
18.2%
Somewhat support
76.7%
Somewhat oppose
2.3%
Strongly oppose
2.4%
Not sure
0.4%
Total support 94.9% · total opposition 4.7%.
Notable splits (directional)
- Support holds across every cut: Democrats 92% support, independents 92%, homeowners 91%, renters 90%.
- The only meaningful opposition is among Republican-leaning respondents (~44% oppose) — about a tenth of the modeled county electorate.
Question 3 · asked verbatim · n=600
“Which concern about data centers matters most to you, if any?”
Noise, traffic, and land use
48.2%
Higher electricity bills
22.3%
Nothing — I'm not concerned about data centers
16.6%
Water use
8.2%
Not sure
2.7%
Losing potential tax revenue and jobs
2.0%
Options shown ranked; respondents saw them in rotated order.
Notable splits (directional)
- The concern is income-split: under-$75k households rank electricity bills first (54–60% within group); $75k+ households rank noise/traffic/land use first (54–58%).
- Only 2% pick losing tax revenue and jobs as their top concern.
Question 4 · asked verbatim · n=600
“Some people say data centers bring tax revenue and jobs to the county. Others say they strain power, water, and roads. Which comes closer to your view?”
They mostly bring tax revenue and jobs
51.3%
Both about equally
33.8%
They mostly strain power, water, and roads
14.4%
Not sure
0.5%
Notable splits (directional)
- Read together with Q2: a majority credits the economic upside and still supports the pause — the support signal is 'not yet / not like this,' not blanket rejection.
- Lowest-income households diverge hardest: 78% of under-$25k respondents say data centers mostly strain infrastructure.
Question 5 · asked verbatim · n=600
“Would you support or oppose allowing new data centers in the county if developers were required to pay for their own power infrastructure and fund community benefits?”
Support
97.8%
Oppose
2.1%
Not sure
0.1%
Near-unanimous results should be read as a strong directional signal, not a precise point estimate.
Notable splits (directional)
- Support under conditions is uniform across party, tenure, age, and income — the clearest single result in the study.
Question 6 · asked verbatim · n=600
“Who do you trust more to handle data-center policy in Prince George's County?”
The County Council
42.4%
The County Executive
34.8%
Neither
20.4%
Both equally
2.0%
Not sure
0.4%
Notable splits (directional)
- Democrats split Council 47% / Executive 42%; independents and Republican-leaners break heavily to 'Neither' (63% and 76% within group).
Question 7 · asked verbatim · n=600
“How important will a candidate's position on data centers be to your vote in the next county election?”
Very important
0.8%
Somewhat important
91.0%
Not too important
6.0%
Not at all important
2.2%
91.8% say at least somewhat important. The calibrated 'Very important' share (0.8%) is lower than the raw model share (4.0%); both are published in the data file, as-is.
Notable splits (directional)
- Salience is highest among $75k+ households and voters under 55 — the county's likeliest primary electorate.
Why we ran this
Live civic decisions usually outrun public-opinion research: a traditional county poll takes weeks and five figures, and this vote is tomorrow. Lewsearch runs fast, calibrated synthetic reads so the people making and debating these decisions have something rigorous and public to look at — published before the outcome, frozen, and auditable. No one commissioned or paid for this study, and Lewsearch takes no position on the moratorium.
Questions, corrections, or a decision you'd like a fast read on: jeffrey@lewsearch.com
Read this before citing
- Synthetic panel of AI respondents — not a probability sample, and no human residents were interviewed.
- The cohort matches county census marginals (ACS 2024 / Census QuickFacts); party lean is a modeled prior anchored to the county's 2024 presidential result and voter registration, and is disclosed in the data file.
- Prince George's County is not a benchmarked Lewsearch panel: point estimates are directional. Subgroup splits use small cells and a 3% floor calibration; treat them as directional patterns, not precise subgroup estimates.
- Fielded and published July 6, 2026, before the July 7 Council vote. Toplines are frozen as published; an outcome scorecard was appended after the council passed the moratorium.