Data center companies learned the hard way that winning Washington isn't the same as winning the country. They had the permits, the agencies and a president who warned that towns rejecting them would end up "backwards and poor." Then the neighbors showed up.
Next month's midterms set the same trap. Polls show Democrats could sweep Congress, and the temptation in every C-suite would be to mistake a Democratic Congress for a Democratic Washington.
Companies avoid that mistake when corporate communications and government affairs leaders work hand in hand. Corporate communications staff know that November's vote won't tell you what stakeholders believe about each issue that comes up in the next two years. Government affairs workers know that Congress' flip doesn't mean President Donald Trump is out of power.
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After all, voters sent Republicans packing in 2006, but President George W. Bush still ordered the surge in Iraq two months later and lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling in 2008. President Barack Obama pushed through an immigration order, the Iran nuclear deal and Title IX guidance on gender identity after Republicans took Congress in 2014. And President Joe Biden 's Federal Trade Commission kept suing corporations into his final days in office.
In each case, congressional power belonged to the president's opponents while the regulatory regime stayed in his hands. And Trump's record shows that he'll use that power. After losing the House in 2018, he did not pivot to the center. He presided over a 35-day government shutdown and then declared a national emergency to fund the border wall. He will make a deal, but on his own terms, and agencies will be his strongest leverage. Any plan that assumes he will spend two years as a quiet lame duck is hoping for a president who has never existed.
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Voters haven't changed sides, either. Voting for Democrats doesn't make voters card-carrying members. The party in the White House has gained House seats just four times in midterm elections since 1900, which means even modest losses are normal. Big losses will be about the most apolitical of all issues: the economy, where the Iran war and tariffs have raised what Americans pay at every gas station and with every grocery order.
All of this means that communications and government affairs teams need to think through the stakeholders each group normally tackles alone. Data centers show what happens when they don't. When we studied the industry for Proven Media Solutions' Insider Insights report earlier in October, government affairs teams had spent years winning permits from state and federal agencies and support from elected officials at every level of government. Corporate communications seemed to have been left out of the loop until local communities – passed over for the big important players – played a key role in slowing 40% of data centers that were due to open this year.
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Data centers are the issue du jour, but here are some others that should be considered by both functions at the corporate, division and regional levels once election results are known.
Take DEI. Corporations had already long backed off on their most controversial and political aspects with relatively modest pushback, but Trump's early 2025 executive orders put the issue back in the spotlight for months. Government contractors were especially hard hit as words like "equity" were erased from websites – good for contracts but horrible for employee relations, as many felt that diversity had been traded for profit.
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Should Democrats call some of the large government contractors to testify about these changes, or accuse them publicly of racist behavior, lobbying or behind-the-scenes handshakes won't solve a thing. Corporate communications is going to have to build trust with all stakeholders, especially minority partners, investors and employees – through every possible messenger – before the hearing notice arrives.
Or look at immigration, where hotel chains have been under pressure over lodging ICE agents. In January, the General Services Administration removed a Minneapolis-area hotel from federal lodging programs after a Minneapolis-area franchise refused agents rooms. Weeks later, protesters occupied a Manhattan Hilton lobby over the opposite complaint.
The chains largely shook off the local controversies, often because they smartly issued statements and then went quiet, but that may be impossible once Congress is involved. It's going to take government affairs relationships with the committees and agencies, combined with corporate communications' read on customers, employees and franchise owners, to navigate these waters.
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That is why the post-election plan needs to be a single playbook, built by both teams, that maps where the company is vulnerable, where it has leverage and which of today's allies could become tomorrow's critics. Government affairs teams know the regulators, agency staff and appointees who will matter no matter who wins. Corporate communications staff know the customers, employees and communities who will judge whatever the company says. A message written for one group will be read by the other, so it has to be the same story every time.
Democrats were supposed to be irrelevant after 2004 and 2024, and the GOP likewise after 2012 and 2020 – and, allegedly, 2026. Voters who want more money in their pockets and data centers nowhere near their backyards are not changing parties, and companies that plan as if they were, will be talking to a country that doesn't exist.
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