Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany will crisscross Wisconsin this week as part of a new “Protecting Wisconsin Farmland Tour,” highlighting his push to protect agricultural land and give local communities more control over the rapid expansion of data centers and other large-scale developments.
Tiffany will make four stops Thursday and Friday, visiting farms near Green Bay, Wausau, La Crosse and Eau Claire.
According to the campaign, the tour will focus on protecting productive farmland from being converted into industrial-scale wind, solar and data center projects while preserving local decision-making authority over developments that can dramatically reshape rural communities.
The tour comes as Tiffany has increasingly made data centers a dividing line in the governor’s race.
Tiffany has called for ending taxpayer-funded subsidies for data center companies and requiring the massive projects to pay their own way rather than shifting infrastructure and energy costs onto Wisconsin families and small businesses through higher utility bills.
He has also called for preserving the authority of local governments to decide whether data centers are appropriate for their communities and banning non-disclosure agreements that can keep residents in the dark while local officials negotiate with developers.
Tiffany has tied the issue directly to farmland preservation, arguing Wisconsin should not sacrifice productive agricultural land to sprawling data centers or industrial-scale wind and solar developments.
The Republican has recently turned that contrast against Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley, dubbing him “Data Center David Crowley” in a new campaign ad.
Crowley has indicated he would continue state tax incentives for data center developments and has embraced a far more aggressive approach to attracting the industry to Wisconsin. During the Democratic primary, Crowley said he wanted Wisconsin to become the AI and data hub for the “entire globe.”
Data centers have emerged as a political lightning rod in the race for governor, with Francesca Hong making her support for a one-year moratorium on new AI data centers a key rallying cry of her campaign. Polling has also shown growing skepticism among Wisconsin voters, with many questioning whether the economic benefits of data center development outweigh the costs.
Crowley, who has taken a more pro-data center stance, narrowly defeated Hong in the Democratic primary after benefiting from an influx of campaign spending from pro-data center interests.
Tiffany’s tour begins Thursday morning in Brillion before traveling to Marathon City that afternoon. On Friday, he will visit a farm in Coon Valley before concluding the tour in Osseo.
