Democrat Paige Cognetti is taking a shot at artificial intelligence data centers in her challenge to freshman Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, saying “we’re not for sale” in a new TV ad in a swing Pennsylvania congressional district where communities are fighting data center projects.
The race between Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton, and Bresnahan is considered one of the Democratic Party’s best opportunities to pick up a seat in the November election in its bid to take control of the U.S. House and block President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Cognetti is airing the ad in a district that’s been buffeted by AI data center projects and as the opposition to data centers that has upended races for local offices across the country is spreading to top-of-the-ticket contests.
Speaking to the camera, Cognetti invokes the region’s industrial heritage as a coal and shale gas powerhouse, saying, “Big companies have come before, taken what they wanted and left us with their mess to clean up. Now it’s data centers.”
She then criticizes the secrecy that developers often use to veil details of projects from the public, the tax breaks developers often get from states and the rising electric bills that have hit the mid-Atlantic region to satisfy the growing energy demand of data centers, which house rows of computers for storing, processing and transmitting data.
“Big Tech needs to pay their own way. Not hide behind NDAs. No tax breaks. Don’t raise our electric bills, don’t poison our water. And hire local, union labor,” Cognetti says.
If not, “then get out,” she says. “This is our home. We are not for sale.”
Trump has made data centers a top priority to help the U.S. compete against China for AI superiority.
However, communities across the U.S. have fought many of the projects, including in northeastern Pennsylvania, where complexes of data centers and new high-voltage transmission lines are planned. Fights between communities and developers have landed in court.
The 30-second ad will run on broadcast TV channels, cable and digital platforms, Cognetti’s campaign said. It is costing about $200,000 for the initial run of two weeks.
Bresnahan has introduced legislation called the Local Control Protection Act, which he says would put limits on a corporation’s right to sue over local zoning decisions denying an application to build a data center.
“We should never let billion-dollar corporations supersede the voices of those who live in the community,” Bresnahan said in a statement accompanying the bill’s introduction in June.
The bill has yet to move out of committee or gain a cosponsor.
Republicans have made protecting Bresnahan a high priority. Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance visited the district last year.