Throughout his campaign for Florida governor, Rep. Byron Donalds has been unapologetically enthusiastic about data centers. The Republican candidate vying to replace Gov. Ron DeSantis told a group of Miami businesses last spring that Florida was “wide open” for development. “We have actual land in our state that is still pristine, available to use,” he said at the time. Amid growing evidence of the unpopularity of data centers among voters, he nonetheless dug in, bashing other candidates, like David Jolly, now the Democratic nominee, who had proposed moratoriums. “There ain’t no bans coming,” Donalds said at a campaign event in August. “But it sounds good on TV. Or it sounds good on social media.”

His wife, Erika Donalds, a charter school executive and education chair for the conservative think tank, America First Policy Institute, is also a supporter of the technology. At a Washington, DC, meeting with educators last month, she said that teachers are often the biggest obstacle to implementing AI in schools. During a roundtable discussion at the Ronald Reagan Institute, she made the case that AI education models could be more effective than some current teaching methods. “The biggest challenge I see with adopting these new technologies and the desire to ban them, ” she said, according to the Miami Herald, “is great teachers who have been teaching the same way for a long time and getting great results, and who have to change their pedagogy if we adopt these technologies.”

The couple also include the burgeoning AI industry in their stock portfolio. According to Byron Donalds’ most recent Congressional financial disclosure report, which was released in August and includes financial information for 2025, he........

© Mother Jones