Shapiro, Garrity accuse each other of supporting data centers

The race for Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial seat is heating up as both the Democratic and Republican nominees release attack ads casting each other as allies for data center developers .

Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity (R) is trailing 15 points behind her opponent, incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), according to an August New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena poll. The GOP candidate is now working to bridge the gap, launching a new wave of ads surrounding data center development in the Keystone State.

Garrity knocked Shapiro’s past support of Amazon data centers , arguing in one campaign ad the governor “sold us out.”

She also bashed the governor’s 2025 Fast Track data center permitting program — under which Amazon invested $20 billion to construct two of these facilities in Luzerne and Bucks counties. At the time, Garrity applauded Shapiro’s move , saying it would create “thousands of jobs” and “bring historic investment” into the state.

Shapiro walked back his data center protections in an August executive order placing safeguards on prospective developers, which required firms to pay for their facilities’ own electricity costs and mandated local community approvals before construction.

The governor of the Keystone State said he made the reversal in response to community feedback.

“I heard loud and clear from the people of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said at the time, adding he will not allow his state to “be bullied by developers and bulldozed by the lawyers” working for tech companies.

Shapiro responded to Garrity in his own ad , calling the state treasurer “Pennsylvania’s No. 1 fan of data centers.”

The governor’s ad mentions a speech the Republican candidate delivered earlier this year when she welcomed the possibility of putting data centers in Pennsylvania’s rural counties. Though, later in her remarks, she added that “you can’t just jam it [data centers] down their throats.”

Like Shapiro, Garrity has distanced herself from these comments and favored a pause on data center development in the state. Before her attack ads, she referred to Shapiro as data centers’ “biggest cheerleader.”

The strategy aligns with the public’s growing frustration with these facilities’ presence in the U.S. A July Fox News poll found 70 percent of voters said they oppose the building of a data center in their area to power artificial intelligence technology.

In response to the backlash, other swing states have similarly moved away from the projects.

Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the progressive Sunrise Movement, told The Hill this week that during her canvassing in Michigan and Wisconsin, voters told her they “are flipping their party affiliation because of the importance of data centers.”