Why Nevada candidates can't stop talking about data centers

Indy Elections takes you behind the headlines of Nevada politics, delivering scoops and smart analysis on the races that could reshape our lives. You can change your newsletter settings here.

In today's edition: Behind the top talking point of this fall's election. Plus: Spending heats up in the race for Congress, the Retail Association of Nevada swaps its endorsement, and a Republican congressional candidate shows up to protest the Culinary Union. 

Is AI going to kill us all? Nevada politicians are starting to worry about it while the public opposes its physical manifestation — data centers. 

This newsletter is published every week. We want to hear from you! Email your newsletter editor Mini Racker at [email protected]. 

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Is ChatGPT writing all these ad scripts?

Last week, Reno mayoral candidate Kathleen Taylor released an attack ad accusing her opponent, former Nevada treasurer and Lt. Gov. Kate Marshall, of giving "$25 million in tax breaks to data centers." It refers to when Marshall sat on a state board that in 2020 approved giving a tax break to Google for a data center.

But the board had no choice but to approve the tax break. Until last year, if a company pledged to meet all requirements, the board legally had to sign off.

At the same time, Taylor was the only member of the Reno City Council to oppose a data center moratorium this year. It's all an indication that voters want to hear what candidates don't like, rather than like, about data centers.

"I'm opposed to data centers in residential neighborhoods, anything that uses our precious resources, water, and any sort of residential rate increases are unacceptable," Taylor said in an interview last week. "I'm not for tax abatements either."

From local races to statewide contests, candidates across the political spectrum are trying to position themselves as best equipped to stand up to the increasingly controversial data center industry. In the past month, data from AdImpact shows groups have spent more than $970,000 on ads mentioning data centers, making up more than one-eighth of all spending in Nevada, an Indy analysis found.

Governor's race: Four of the five ads actively running across Nevada that mention data centers are in the governor's race, where lines blur over which candidate supported data center tax breaks and when.

• Nevada Democrats released a website calling Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) "Data Center Joe" and ran ads saying Lombardo doesn't care that data centers are raising costs. Attorney General Aaron Ford's (D) campaign highlighted in ads the millions of dollars Lombardo has received from donors connected to data centers and also promised to pause new data center tax incentives.
• Lombardo has supported data center development, but in his recently released economic proposal, he called to direct tax funding from data centers to educational institutions — an idea the Clark County teachers union also touted last week.
• At the same time, Lombardo's campaign is running ads highlighting that Ford sponsored and supported the bipartisan 2015 bill that established Nevada's lucrative data center tax break program. Ford has defended the bill, saying the definition of a data center has changed dramatically since then.

Across the state: Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas) plans to introduce a bill during the 2027 legislative session to repeal centers' tax breaks and place a moratorium on building new data centers. 

• In the attorney general's race, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) released a plan calling for more transparency in data center deals and more thorough environmental reviews.
• She has also criticized comments her opponent, lawyer Adriana Guzmán Fralick (R), made earlier this year, when she said Nevada should "roll with the punches on data centers." A spokesman for Fralick's campaign told KTNV "Adriana supports Governor Lombardo's stance on data centers and will enforce all Nevada laws fairly and as they are written."

The bottom line: Data centers are unpopular. A recent Emerson College poll showed that nearly 59 percent of those polled in Nevada opposed building data centers in or near their communities.

— Eric Neugeboren and Tabitha Mueller

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What we're reading and writing

It's the economy, stupid. 

New signs Democrats could win the 2nd Congressional District.

Drama within the Culinary Union.

The candidates in this congressional district hold positions that don't fit party orthodoxy.

Nevada's GOP chairman says Vice President JD Vance is the front-runner for 2028. 

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Indy Ad Watch: A Titus budget or saving a Buck?

After virtually no spending all year, Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) and state Sen. Carrie Buck (R-Henderson) — along with the National Republican Congressional Committee — have begun pouring hundreds of thousands of ad dollars into the race. 

Titus' "Never Back Down" blames President Donald Trump's "ballrooms and monuments to himself" for higher costs and frames voting as a way to change that. 

Buck's "Buck Stops Here" also argues "Nevadans already pay too much" and highlights her record as an educator, stating "Washington doesn't make the grade."

The messages may be similar, but the spending disparity is stark. Per AdImpact, Democrats have spent or reserved $308,000 worth of ads in the race, but for Republicans, that number surpasses $1.5 million, about five times as much. That's the biggest disparity in favor of the GOP at this point in years, illustrating the party's high hopes for Buck.

Other notables:

• The Democratic Governors Association state-level PAC has spent or reserved more than $2 million in campaign ads as of Monday morning, and Ford's campaign has spent or reserved nearly $2 million. The almost $4 million in total spending, however, still lags far behind combined Republican ad spending by more than $34.8 million. 

• Controller Andy Matthews (R) released his first ad on Monday, a 30-second spot in which he touts the website his office launched that provides real-time information on state spending. His campaign said it was part of a six-figure TV ad campaign. It later clarified to The Indy that the campaign is running the ad through Internet platforms and did not say whether it would be also running the ads on cable.

• Two candidates for the Nevada Legislature — Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop (D-Las Vegas) and Assembly candidate Ryan Hampton (D) — are already on the Nevada airwaves. Their campaigns have spent about $46,000 on ads already, a rarity at this point in the cycle. Up to this point in the past three cycles, no legislative campaign had spent more than $5,000 in general election ads, according to AdImpact.

— Mini Racker, Tabitha Mueller and Eric Neugeboren

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Mini Series: Let it Whip(ple)

🛍 Shopping for a new governor? — The Retail Association of Nevada (RAN) has endorsed Ford for governor, after backing Lombardo in 2022. RAN President Bryan Wachter told The Indy the endorsement was motivated by Ford's opposition to President Donald Trump's tariffs, his campaign pledge to create a new financial district in Las Vegas and by the group's feeling "that the economy has gotten worse over the last four years … and the governor seems to be sitting on the sidelines for that."

• The group's political history leans Republican, but it has donated to and endorsed some Democrats before, primarily in legislative races. Wachter said it was the organization's first time endorsing a Democratic candidate for governor "in recent memory" but emphasized the decision was about Ford's plans if elected governor, not his party. 
• RAN recently hired lobbyist Annette Magnus, the former executive director of Battle Born Progress, one of Nevada's most prominent progressive groups. Magnus wrote in a text to The Indy that she was "honored to have RAN as a client" but declined to comment further; Wachter said Magnus is a "valuable resource" but was not the reason for the endorsement.

✊ Republican on unexpected territory — Republican congressional candidate Cody Whipple received a resounding welcome at a rally last Wednesday at the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, where a boisterous crowd of roughly a hundred members were protesting their own union's leadership. Whipple, who is seeking to unseat Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), a longtime ally of the union and former head of its affiliated Culinary Training Academy program, told The Indy that his attendance was proof that he's "always been about working for Nevadans" while Horsford has been "absent for 20-plus years."

• Whipple also gave brief remarks to the crowd, promising to contact Culinary leadership about protesters' complaints. He was introduced by Rosemary Flores, a regular at the protests and a conservative activist who attended Trump's April visit to Las Vegas. In speeches at the rallies, Flores has lambasted Democratic elected officials and has singled out Horsford by name multiple times.
• Horsford's campaign team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

📁The Chadwick Files — A new website titled The Chadwick Files points fingers at Henderson mayoral candidate Hollie Chadwick and her record as the former police chief of Henderson. The website is paid for by Henderson Mayor Michelle Romero, who is running for re-election. It links to articles about police mishaps and misdeeds under Chadwick's tenure, including a Las Vegas Review-Journal investigation into a police officer's disciplinary record that Chadwick had reportedly dismissed. When asked about the website in an interview, Chadwick said the website was just 5 percent of the story, and said that some of the claims linked on the website had already gone through arbitration and been settled. 

🤼Jauregui vs. Stavros — Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony (R) and his general election opponent Assembly Majority Leader Sandra Jauregui (D) released dueling statements last week on their opponents' ethics. 

• On Sep. 10, Jaurgui went so far as to release an entire ethics platform, calling for a ban on elected officials participating in stock trading and betting on prediction markets. She also included a pitch to have mandatory ethics training for all state elected officials within 60 days of taking office.
• In a press release on Thursday, Anthony called on Jauregui to release the names of her clients at the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Hilltop Public Solutions and her own firm Home Means Nevada Strategies. 

— Kate Reynolds, Oona Milliken, Isabella Aldrete and Mini Racker 

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Looking Ahead

• Thursday, Sept. 17 — Sample ballots are distributed
• Friday, Sept. 18 — Military-overseas ballots begin to be sent out
• Wednesday, Sept. 30  — IndyTalks Reno Mayoral Forum

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A post that caught our eye: 

The Mandela effect is real…

We'll see you next week. 

Interested in more newsletters from The Nevada Independent? Find all of them here. 

This newsletter was corrected on 9/16/2026 at 10:01 a.m. to indicate Nevada Democrats were responsible for a Data Center Joe website.