Fact Check: Where candidates Donalds and Jolly stand on data centers

Republican Byron Donalds’ position on data centers was one of his Republican primary challengers’ biggest attack lines against him — including his willingness to accept millions in campaign funds from industries looking to build data centers in Florida. Democrat David Jolly has since taken up the moniker of “data center Donalds” to attack his opponent.

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Donalds’ campaign has defended those campaign contributions by saying he’ll accept money from a wide range of sources and isn’t beholden to donors. Donalds has proposed new regulations in Florida barring data centers from accessing public power and water sources. Jolly is pitching a one-year moratorium on the construction of data centers with the possibility of a permanent ban.

Issue: Data centers

Byron Donalds, Republican nominee

Donalds released a campaign ad focused on data centers in June responding to the criticism lobbed against him. In it, he laid out his plans to regulate data centers, but not ban them entirely.

“You don’t want to pay for AI data centers and when I’m governor, you won’t,” he says in the ad. “As governor, I’ll fight for a ratepayer protection plan. Because in my Florida, if you don’t protect our pocketbooks and our people, you won’t build data centers.”

He filed a similar proposal in Congress in July that would require data centers to find private power and water sources, and forbids their operation if they use the publicly maintained electric grid or water system. The bill has not yet garnered any co-sponsors.

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David Jolly, Democratic nominee

David Jolly has said he will sign an executive order issuing a one-year moratorium on the construction of data centers in Florida on his first day in office if elected governor.

He said he’d commission studies on the environmental and economic impacts of data centers during that year to discern what additional legislation he’d propose, but he’s open to the possibility of a permeant ban on data centers.

“I anticipate that could lead to a full ban,” he told the Miami Herald. “The bottom line is I don’t think we need data centers in the state of Florida.”

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