A North Carolina congressional primary on Tuesday is an early test of datacenter politics – a fight increasingly shaping elections nationwide.
In the Durham-area fourth district, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee is seeking her third term against progressive challenger Nida Allam, a Durham county commissioner she defeated in 2022.
The heated rematch comes against the backdrop of a major datacenter battle in the district. Allam has come out staunchly against a massive new proposed facility, and is supporting a federal datacenter moratorium. Foushee, meanwhile, said she does not personally support the new development, but that datacenter decisions should be left to local leaders, not federal ones.
Until mid-February, Allam’s campaign donations dwarfed Foushee’s, thanks to Pacs such as Justice Democrats and gun control activist David Hogg’s Leaders We Deserve. In the last two weeks, that picture has changed dramatically as major Pacs have raced to back the incumbent.
Chief among them is Jobs and Democracy, a Super Pac whose sole disclosed donor is Anthropic, the AI firm behind Claude. The group has spent about $1.6m on Foushee’s re-election campaign since February 21.
Though Anthropic has no known links to the local datacenter proposal, opposition to it has left some local residents especially skeptical of all political funding tied to big tech.
Anthropic brands itself as safety-focused, making headlines in recent days for refusing the Pentagon’s demand for unfettered use of its products, though its tools have since reportedly been used in strikes on Iran. The company has backed some state AI safeguards and last year helped defeat a federal ban on state AI regulations.
Part of the broader network Public First Action, the Jobs and Democracy Super Pac “was created to fight back and make sure leaders who have been on the front lines of protecting kids, families, workers, and our national security from the risks of unregulated AI get elected”, spokesperson Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez wrote in an email.
The idea, however, that a big tech-backed group would support candidates who will regulate AI to the necessary degree is “laughable”, according to Allam.
“That would be like if I allowed my two kids to decide and be the dictators of their own bedtime,” she said in an interview with the Guardian.
Hundreds signed an open letter urging candidates to oppose the datacenter proposal in the fourth district and reject big-tech Pac money.
Allam, who agreed to the terms of the letter, said: “I wear it as a badge of honor that [big tech] sees me as a threat.”
But when a high school student asked Foushee if she would accept funding from the AI sector last month, she said: “I have not made any pledge.”
In an email, Foushee said “I do not coordinate with Super Pacs in any way” and that she will push for datacenter regulations in Congress.
“I have long been fighting to hold oligarchs and large corporations accountable in Congress,” she said….
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