Tutor Perini sees $200B in potential bids. Almost none of them are data centers.

The day after voters made their distaste for data centers clear, the heavy civil contractor said it saw renewed momentum for increased infrastructure funding.

If data center construction is increasingly the only game in town, you wouldn’t know it looking at Tutor Perini’s latest earnings results.

The Los Angeles-based heavy civil contractor turned in record revenue and near-record backlog in the third quarter, most of which came from core infrastructure and building jobs. It said it sees an additional $200 billion in bidding opportunities in core construction activity over the next three to four years.

In its Wednesday earnings report, the firm said demand for its traditional civil construction services remained robust, “driven by well-funded state, local and federal customers that have numerous large-scale, high-priority infrastructure projects planned over the next several years.”

It also said it was seeing interest from commercial customers for new or renovated buildings in healthcare, education, and hospitality and gaming.

Notably absent from that outlook was any mention of data center construction, the red hot sector that got trundled during Tuesday’s midterms with dozens of local voter initiatives passing nationally to reign in development.

In contrast to its messaging on past earnings calls, Tutor Perini made the point that very little of its current, multibillion-dollar backlog was related to data center work.

“If you look at the backlog that we have that's data center-related and that is not, it's 0.2% of our backlog as of the end of September,” Gary Smalley, Tutor Perini’s president and CEO, said during the earnings call. “So very negligible.”

Smalley said that while a few select additional jobs in the sector may materialize, he’s happy to leave the bulk of future data center work on the table for now.

“Data centers is not going to be a focus for us,” Smalley said. “Can we do the work? Sure we can do the work. But, you know, why should we with all the opportunities we have in front of us in the more traditional work?”

Underscoring its diversity away from the data center sector, Tutor Perini highlighted $2.2 billion in core infrastructure projects and construction wins that it added to its backlog in the third quarter, including:

Smalley also reminded investors on the call about the nine infrastructure megaprojects the firm is currently working on that total $16 billion in awarded value.

While management didn’t detail those jobs, some large projects include its role on the $16 billion Hudson Tunnel project and the $3.8 billion Manhattan jail build, both in New York, as well as California’s high-speed rail project, where the firm and its subsidiaries have lined up nearly $4.3 billion in contracts.

Funding outlook

In addition, Smalley highlighted the changing political winds around infrastructure funding with Democrats seizing control of both chambers of Congress.

The current extension of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding expires Dec. 11. Congress will need to pursue another short-term extension or pass the BUILD America 250 Act by that deadline. Observers told Construction Dive a larger bill now likely won’t pass until the new Congress is sworn in next year.

Smalley said the results of the election, however, have introduced a renewed focus around that funding.

“What we've heard is that there appears to be some momentum and maybe that momentum will increase based on the results of the midterms for a new transportation bill and additional funding,” Smalley said.

By the numbers

Tutor Perini posted revenue of $1.72 billion during the third quarter, the most of any quarter in company history and a 21.5% increase from a year ago. Its backlog came in at $20.4 billion, down 6% from record backlog of $21.6 billion in Q3 2025, but up sequentially from $19.9 billion in Q2 2026.

The firm’s profits were also up. Net income was $20.7 million, more than five times higher than $3.6 million a year earlier. The company attributed the rise to better margins in its business segments, higher interest income on larger cash balances, a lower overall tax rate and higher-quality backlog.

It all combined to the company spotlighting a bright outlook for 2027 and beyond, even if there’s no funding increase moving forward.

“We are in great shape if there is no more federal funding, but expecting that there will be some more,” Smalley said. “There's just too many opportunities and we're so well positioned on too many of them for us not to continue to grow.”