House Majority PAC, the unofficial outside spending arm of House Democratic leadership, has spent the closing weeks of the midterms attacking Republicans over money from the data center industry. Over the same period, the PAC has taken more than $10 million from donors with financial ties to the data center buildout, including a Microsoft director, AMD’s CEO, and the president of a firm building a $4 billion data center campus in Texas.
Since late September, HMP has run ads in at least nine House races accusing Republicans of doing favors for the data center industry. The first, launched Sept. 22, labels Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) “Data Center Derrick” and says he took tens of thousands of dollars from the industry. Other ads followed against Reps. Bill Huizenga, Mike Lawler, and Mike Turner, and Republican candidates in Montana, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas, according to HMP press releases.
Several of the ads center on data center-tied campaign contributions. HMP says Huizenga “took nearly $200,000 from data center interests” before voting for a tax break for data center developers. Its ads in Ohio’s 9th District say Republican Derrick Merrin took money from FirstEnergy and data center developers, then voted for corporate handouts.
