Whether to support data center development is a defining issue in this campaign season, and it is a debate that has taken over many Native American tribes. And on this issue, many Native leaders on the ballot—including Deb Haaland running for governor of New Mexico, Sharice Davids running for the House of Representatives from Kansas, Mary Peltola running for the U.S. Senate from Alaska, and Peggy Flanagan in a race for U.S.
Senate in Minnesota—are being forced to address the issue head-on. Flanagan won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor primary for the U.S. Her Ojibwe name, Gizhiiwewidamookwe, means Speaks in a Loud and Clear Voice Woman.
She has spoken forcefully on data centers, calling AI an “existential threat to us if it gets out of control,” in a July Minnesota Public Radio News debate. In her primary against Rep. Angie Craig, Flanagan ran ads attacking Craig’s ties to the crypto industry: “Angie Craig voted to let Trump make billions selling crypto coins.
I won’t.” Analysts see AI and data centers as a natural extension of that same anti-corporate-money lane heading into November. Her “existential threat” framing is about AI broadly, tied to job loss, safety, and runaway systems. Davids is a former MMA fighter and lawyer by training; she knows how to throw a punch and how to build a case.
On data centers, she’s done neither publicly. But she took a quieter and pragmatic approach in a July KSHB voter guide, stating that “no data center should move forward if it raises electricity costs for families, wastes our limited water resources, or shifts the burden onto Kansas communities.” “Data center decisions are primarily made at the state and local level,” Davids said. It’s also a convenient position: she sits on Transportation, Small Business, and Agriculture committees, not those that would put data centers in her lane anyway.
In February, Davids met with the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, which proceeded to formally vote against the Section 106 rollback in July, warning it would weaken tribal consultation and expand unilateral agency power. But showing up for a meeting doesn’t carry the same weight as making a public statement. Haaland’s campaign has proposed sun, wind, and geothermal energy generation to offset data center energy consumption alongside requiring high-energy-demand industries to build their own energy infrastructure.
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