Debate about data centers emerges in Donalds-Jolly gubernatorial race

A weekend essay from Anthropic's CEO warning about AI risk has amplified an already-simmering fight in Florida's governor's race, where Democrat David Jolly is campaigning on a proposed year-long moratorium on new data center construction, a policy so far enacted only in New York. Republican Byron Donalds, who called data centers and power 'the two critical things' for Florida's future as recently as mid-2025, now dismisses Jolly's stance as 'politics' while distancing himself from his own prior enthusiasm.

Donalds voted for a House bill last year that would have blocked state and local AI regulation for a decade; the Senate stripped that provision before Trump signed the final law, and Donalds now says he 'wasn't probably the biggest fan' of the language he voted for. He touts a state law requiring data centers to pay their own water and power costs, sponsored by his own running mate, while saying nothing about that same lawmaker's separate bill to let data center deals hide from public records for up to a year, which died on the Senate floor after a colleague warned it would let local officials look like they'd taken kickbacks. Donalds, who has drawn substantial contributions from AI and data-center interests, denies any industry could influence his policy views.

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