The Race and the Ad
Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, the Democratic challenger to freshman Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan in a swing Pennsylvania congressional district, is spending roughly $200,000 over two weeks on a broadcast, cable and digital TV ad that targets artificial intelligence data center development in the region.
The 30-second spot invokes the district's coal and shale gas heritage. 'Big companies have come before, taken what they wanted and left us with their mess to clean up. Now it's data centers,' Cognetti says directly to camera. She calls for no tax breaks, no NDAs, no higher electric bills, no water pollution and a requirement that developers 'hire local, union labor.' If those conditions aren't met, she says, 'then get out. This is our home. We are not for sale.'
The race is considered one of the Democratic Party's best opportunities to pick up a House seat in November, according to the source reporting, as the party works to retake the chamber and block President Donald Trump's legislative agenda.
What the Incumbent Already Did
The ad lands after Bresnahan had already moved on the same issue — through legislation rather than television. In June, Bresnahan introduced the Local Control Protection Act, which he says would limit a corporation's ability to sue over local zoning decisions that deny a data center application.
'We should never let billion-dollar corporations supersede the voices of those who live in the community,' Bresnahan said in the statement accompanying the bill's introduction. The bill has not yet moved out of committee or gained a cosponsor.
Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance visited the district last year, and Republicans have made protecting Bresnahan a high priority.
The Broader Context
Trump has made data center expansion a top national priority, framing it as essential to U.S. competition against China for AI superiority. Communities across the country, including in northeastern Pennsylvania where large data center complexes and new high-voltage transmission lines are planned, have pushed back — and some disputes have ended up in court.
The opposition to data centers has already upended races for local offices across the country, and the Cognetti ad signals that resistance is now reaching top-of-the-ticket congressional contests.
CEO Times Read
The politics here are worth watching carefully. Cognetti's ad is a well-produced populist frame that conflates legitimate local concerns — transparency, fair cost allocation, zoning rights — with a broader hostility to the private capital investment that AI infrastructure requires. Calling for 'no tax breaks' sounds clean on camera; in practice it means higher barriers for the data economy that is driving U.S. productivity growth and the competition with Beijing that the Trump administration has correctly identified as a strategic priority.
Bresnahan's Local Control Protection Act, whatever its legislative fate, at least attempts to solve the real problem: ensuring that communities, not corporate legal departments, have the final word on zoning. That is a free-enterprise answer — property rights and local sovereignty — rather than a campaign ad. Capital rewards clear rules. Pennsylvania voters will decide which approach they trust.
