HARRISBURG – A critical swing seat in Pennsylvania’s state Senate could come down to which candidate can convince voters they’re more firmly opposed to data centers. In the final weeks of their campaigns, incumbent Republican Tracy Pennycuick and Democratic challenger Chris Thomas are spending millions of dollars blanketing the 24th state Senate District in ads that accuse the other of being in the pockets of data center developers, as several local proposals draw community opposition.
Spanning parts of Berks and Montgomery Counties, the district is among the upper chamber’s most competitive this cycle. Republicans won their last Senate race there by four points and also hold a roughly six-point registration edge. But Democrats believe the wind is at their backs. The 24th is part of the party’s strategy for flipping the state Senate for the first time in decades, which could help deliver Democrats a political trifecta that would allow them to set the agenda in Harrisburg.
The district has seen three data center proposals within its borders, each drawing pushback from residents and scrutiny from local officials. One of the proposals, located in Upper Hanover Township, was recently scuttled by a developer that cited such resistance.
In conversations with Spotlight PA, both Pennycuick and Thomas noted that the race isn’t just about data centers – each cited affordability as their top issue. Still, Thomas said he feels the race “has been defined somewhat by data centers.” He attributed this to public sentiment against tech companies and concerns about the cost of living.
“People are tired of Big Tech and really just big industry coming into our communities, steamrolling folks, and then when they leave town, we’re the ones that are left to pick up the pieces,” he explained.
That feeling is clear from the ads inundating the 24th Senate District. Between Sept. 15 and Oct. 19 alone, Thomas and Pennycuick’s campaigns together spent about $9 million on TV or digital ads and mailers – the vast majority of their spending. (Some of those ad buys came in the form of in-kind contributions, in which supporters, in this case the candidates’ respective Senate party committees, spend on their behalf.)
Thomas, a volunteer firefighter and former middle school math and science teacher, has an ad that argues Pennycuick is “Big Tech’s best buddy in Harrisburg.” In others, Thomas vows to stop data centers from “driving up our utilities” and “make darn sure data centers pay their fair share.”
Pennycuick, a veteran who ran an aviation consulting business and served in the state House before her 2022 Senate win, is accusing Thomas of answering “to radical California donors and data center developers.” Another pro-Pennycuick ad, from the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, says Thomas’ “real bosses are data center developers, not us.” A third, which touts Pennycuick’s anti-data-center work, says she “removed the fast-track language” from a pro-data-center bill and “stopped” it in her committee.
(The claim that Thomas works for data center developers is based on a disclosure in which he reported working for Gilmore & Associates, a civil engineering firm that consulted for Amazon on one of the corporation’s data center proposals in Bucks County. Thomas’ campaign said Thomas did “temporary” marketing and municipal-level advising for the firm after it had consulted on the Amazon project.)
“It’s gotten personal as a campaign,” said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Lehigh University and the director of the school’s Opinion Observatory. “You can see the attacks on character and ethics, but those are even being channeled through these issues: ‘Paid off by data center developer.’”
The anti-data-center argument has been trickier for Pennycuick to mount because her position on the facilities has changed.
