Democratic-leaning PAC goes after Republican congressional candidate over data centers

A Democratic-backing political action committee is getting into the 9th Congressional District race with an ad accusing Republican Sen. Brent Taylor of taking campaign cash from artificial intelligence companies and passing data center legislation.

Three Star PAC released the independent ad Wednesday citing Taylor’s passage of Senate Bill 2128 and criticizing him for “embracing Tennessee’s data center building boom.” It says a September poll of District 9 voters shows 68% of respondents oppose data centers and only 32% support them. Local governments across the state are starting to put a moratorium on data centers.

Taylor, an Eads Republican in the state Senate, is running against Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis, an outspoken critic of data centers, including facilities in Mississippi and south Memphis that Pearson says are polluting the environment and harming residents.

The ad is to run in the Nashville TV market and streaming services in the 9th District, which stretches from Shelby County to Williamson County. In a May special session, the legislature split a majority Black district in urban Memphis into three seats in an effort to help President Donald Trump maintain a Republican majority in the U.S. House in the midterm election.

Three Star PAC’s mission is to elect Democrats “who deliver for Tennessee,” it says on its website, which also describes the PAC as an independent expenditure-only committee registered with the Federal Election Commission.

Its latest FEC report shows receipts of $105,000 during the first half of 2026 and expenditures of $675, as of June 30. The funds come from four individuals, all with Massachusetts addresses.

The ad marks a new twist in the race with an environmental message from a dark money group going after a Republican candidate. An environmental group’s entrance into the 5th Congressional District primary helped vault Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher to victory over embattled U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles.

“They’re coming for our rivers, our neighborhoods, our farmland, because Brent Taylor wrote the law allowing massive data centers to take over Tennessee,” the ad says.

It also accuses Taylor of accepting more than $100,000 from corporate data center companies.

Taylor’s legislation allows data centers to produce power using gas-powered turbines or buy power from independent power producers that operate outside of utilities. If the data center buys power from a utility, data center owners must cover the cost of any infrastructure upgrades needed to support it. Improvements can’t lead to higher ratepayers costs unless the infrastructure benefits other ratepayers.

Tennessee bill gives data centers ability to self-power with limited regulation

Critics of the legislation say it gives companies such as Elon Musk’s XAI a loophole to use gas-powered turbines at facilities in northern Mississippi to run its Memphis data center.

Asked about the new ad Wednesday, Taylor said in a text response he passed the only data center regulation in the legislature this year, a measure that keeps companies from causing higher utility rates.

“My opponent, Democratic Socialist Justin Pearson, voted against this common-sense protection. That’s the problem with a chaotic activist: he prefers creating a problem rather than finding a solution,” Taylor said.

Even though Three Star PAC paid for a message criticizing Taylor, Pearson received an endorsement Wednesday from End Citizens United, a national group running an “Unrig Washington” program joined by 300 Democratic candidates. It said Pearson rejects corporate PAC money, backs a ban on congressional stock trading and is committed to removing dark money from elections.

A recent poll commissioned by Three Star PAC and TN Rise PAC also showed Pearson trailing Taylor 48% to 44%, before he started running campaign ads. TN Rise PAC is supported by officials with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Resources Center, Equity Alliance and Planned Parenthood.

Pearson, who was to speak this week at Climate Forward in New York with environmental activist Erin Brockovich, said the bill Taylor and Republicans “wrote” with the data center industry “fails to adequately address the harms people in Tennessee are feeling or dangers from hyper scale data centers.” In a text statement, he said the bill allows “so many carve outs” for the industry that it doesn’t protect people from Memphis to Lawrenceburg who are coping with the prospect of more “illegal” gas turbines, “corrupt” non-disclosure agreements and millions of gallons of drinking water being used by computers, as well as negative implications for the workforce.

Pearson added, “I prefer to prevent problems from ever happening, that’s why I fought against Space xAI’s data center being powered illegally while (Taylor) celebrated and championed it.”