A MAGA candidate is doomed by a 'uniquely poisonous' issue that will bite him in an upcoming election, an ex-GOP strategist warned.
In Florida, Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has the endorsement of President Donald Trump and three-quarters of the Republican caucus in the state House, Rick Wilson noted in a recent Substack piece. However, he'll likely suffer from his reputation as "the data center guy," Wilson predicted.
"The data center issue is uniquely poisonous here, in a way that transcends the usual red-blue map," Wilson wrote. "That's what makes it so dangerous."
Donalds is closely tied to data centers because his donors come from AI, according to Wilson. He raised $90 million with the backing of a super PAC seeded by OpenAI's founders and "the usual tech broligarchs," Wilson wrote.
According to Wilson, Donalds has been shown on camera calling for Florida's "still pristine" land to be used for data centers. Donalds said he'd rather construct a data center "or four" and demanded "build out that stuff," Wilson noted.
"He said the quiet part into a microphone," Wilson wrote. "In a state where 'pristine' means the Everglades, the springs, the longleaf pine woods, and the vanishing farmlands along the central spur of Florida from Hendry to Lake counties."
Concerns about data centers' water consumption and quality of life are worrying Floridians, and Donalds' opponents are "hammering" the image of him as wanting to build "thousands" across the state, according to Wilson.
"Data centers have managed to unite Floridians across every line we normally see dividing them, and they've united them against the position Byron Donalds was bought for," Wilson wrote. "He might as well have a QR code on his forehead."