Nervous Data Center Brings Casseroles to Neighbors After Midterm Results

ASHBURN, Va. — A 1.2-million-square-foot data center in Loudoun County spent Thursday going door to door with tuna noodle casseroles and a handwritten card reading “Sorry about the humming,” after Democratic midterm wins sent AI stocks to their worst day since April 2025.

“We’ve been neighbors for six years, and I don’t think we ever really talked,” said the facility, speaking through its gate intercom. “That’s on us. We were busy. We were using a lot of electricity.”

The S&P 500 fell 4.4% and the Nasdaq 5.5% as investors worried that hundreds of newly elected candidates who had promised to rein in data centers might actually do it. Goldman Sachs analysts estimated that short-term moratoriums could affect about 45% of planned U.S. data center capacity expansion.

Neighbors said the casserole arrived still warm, having been baked in the facility’s exhaust vents. It came with a written offer to lower the hum to “a gentle murmur” after 10 p.m., return some of the water and turn off the blinking roof lights for Thanksgiving.

After Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) posted “National data center moratorium now” on Thursday, the building joined the HOA book club, volunteered to chaperone the middle school dance and offered to keep everyone’s leftovers at a steady 64 degrees indefinitely.

“It was a good casserole,” said retired school librarian Gloria Plumbottom, 71. “Store-brand noodles, but I heard it had a rough day.” Nvidia alone lost more than $440 billion in market value Thursday.

Neighbors report that three more data centers down the road have signed up to bring sides to Sunday’s block party, and one asked if anyone had a cord long enough to reach its folding table.