David Crowley may have told voters he picked a side on data centers. The data center tech billionaire checks arrived the day after he beat the Democrat who opposed them.
Campaign finance records show Todor Markov, a San Francisco-based AI researcher, gave Crowley the $20,000 maximum the day after the August 11 primary. Markov previously worked at OpenAI on applied AI, safety systems, and preparedness before joining Anthropic. Hong had made opposition to data centers a centerpiece of her campaign. Crowley took the max from an AI lab researcher the next day.
Two more out-of-state maximums landed in the same window. Seattle tech billionaire Chris Stolte gave $20,000 on August 26. Stolte co-founded Tableau Software and, through the Stolte Family Foundation, has put more than $1 million into the Clean Energy Transition Institute, a group focused on deep decarbonization and transmission. California billionaire Quinn Delaney gave $20,000 on August 12, the day after the primary.
Delaney is a Democrat megadonor and co-founder of the Akonadi Foundation in Oakland, which has given roughly $43 million to Bay Area racial-justice groups. Akonadi has backed “police-free schools” in Oakland. InfluenceWatch notes Delaney and her husband, Wayne Jordan, also backed progressive prosecutors, including Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and George Gascón in Los Angeles. Boudin was so soft on crime and mismanaged the DA’s office so badly that even San Francisco progressives recalled him from office. Delaney is among the donors bankrolling candidates tied to the defund-the-police movement, and has previously written checks to Mandela Barnes. The day Crowley became the nominee, she maxed out.
The Tiffany campaign tied the checks to Crowley’s travel and his record:
“David Crowley is jetting between Washington, D.C., and California with Kamala Harris while his campaign takes thousands from AI interests and defund-the-police advocates and millions from the billionaire-backed Democrat Party of Wisconsin,” the campaign said. “He is fully embracing an agenda of higher taxes, soft-on-crime policies, and massive data centers all over Wisconsin.”
Francesca Hong ran on a strong anti-data center message and lost the primary. Left-wing donors who wanted a governor friendly to data centers, who would push for green energy mandates, and Oakland-style defund the police, saw Crowley and maxed out.
