What questions do you have about the 2026 elections? What major issues do you want candidates to address? Let us know.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Philadelphia, surged to the front of the Democratic primary fundraising race in the latest quarter, nearly doubling his closest rivals, despite a recent campaign finance scandal that drained his coffers.

Rabb, who identifies as the progressive candidate in the race, brought in nearly $385,000 between Jan. 1 and March 31.

That number was around twice as much as both of his primary competitors — state Sen. Sharif Street, who previously led the field in fundraising, with $199,000, and Dr. Ala Stanford, with $211,000, in the same period of time.

While Rabb led in new money raised, Stanford entered April with the strongest overall financial position, partly thanks to a $250,000 loan she gave her campaign last year. Her campaign reported about $450,000 cash on hand, compared to Rabb’s $236,000. Street ended the quarter with $263,000.

Rabb’s total was especially notable because it came after his team disclosed that his former treasurer allegedly made more than $160,000 in unauthorized withdrawals from the campaign account last year.

As local tech groups predict that Pennsylvania will outpace its region for data-center growth in the next 10 years, another organization warned that some legislative proposals in play this session would weaken municipalities’ ability to say no. 

“Local authority remains one of the few meaningful tools communities have to push back against large-scale data center and AI development,” Data & Society, a nonprofit that studies the social implications of data, automation and AI, said in a new policy brief. “State government should support, not override, local decision-making, especially with infrastructural decisions as consequential as this.” 

It named several bills in the Pennsylvania legislature that it said would reduce local authority over siting decisions for major industrial facilities, centralizing that power within the state.

The bills include HB 502, a Democrat-led measure that’s part of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s “Lightning Plan” to speed the permitting of energy projects. The bill would set up a statewide board to make decisions on whether to approve large-scale energy projects, which data centers will need. 

Among the other bills the group flagged are two Republican-led measures: SB 939, which would create a standardized “sandbox” to write statewide regulation for the industry, and SB 991, which would provide faster permits for data-center developers who commit to meet or exceed federal environmental standards.  

Pennsylvania communities are “vastly different,” Data & Society said in a statement. “This group of bills erases that diversity and assumes that the same solution will work for all.”

The bills remain in committee.

Meanwhile, an industry report released in late March by the Pittsburgh Technology Council and the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies projected Pennsylvania will see data-center capacity growth of more than 4,000 percent in the next decade. The report, written by Mangum Economics, says that growth will outpace any other place on the regional electric grid PJM Interconnection, which serves 12 other states and Washington, D.C.

Neither Mangum Economics nor the Data Center Coalition, an industry group, responded to requests for comment.

The report said Pennsylvania is especially attractive to data-center developers because it is courting data centers and has major attractions for the electricity-hungry industry. The state is the biggest exporter of electricity in the nation’s largest electric grid. And it’s the second-largest producer of natural gas, a major way that developers plan to power the new hyperscale complexes.

The state also has manufacturing that can supply the new infrastructure needed by the AI industry, the report said.

“While some states excel in hosting data centers, others in energy production, and others in advanced manufacturing, Pennsylvania is on track to uniquely possess all three advantages at scale,” said the report.

It predicted that by 2036, the data center industry will support 19,400 jobs in manufacturing, energy and other sectors. The capacity of new data centers—the maximum amount of electricity they need—is expected to exceed 7,196 megawatts by 2036, up from 186 megawatts now. 

More than 50 data centers are currently planned or under construction in Pennsylvania, according to Data Center Proposal Tracker, a website that monitors planned or actual data center construction throughout the U.S. 

Environmentalists say the expected surge in data center construction will worsen climate change by stimulating the production of natural gas. There’s also growing bipartisan concern about the impact on local water supplies and residential electric bills, which have already risen in anticipation of big new data center demand.

Some communities are pushing back. In February, for instance, commissioners of Montour County in central Pennsylvania rejected a plan by Talen Energy and Amazon to rezone land to build a data center.

Quentin Good, an analyst at Frontier Group, which does research for environmental groups including PennEnvironment, said the industry hasn’t yet provided evidence that there will be enough demand to justify all the data centers in the works. There is a danger of over-investing, especially in additional energy infrastructure, he said.

“That’s going to cost a lot of money,” he said. “But we might not even need it all.”

Good said the prediction of 4,000 percent growth in Pennsylvania’s data center capacity ignores state or local regulation that could have a significant effect. “The report doesn’t consider any of those competing factors,” he said.

In the legislature, state Sen. Katie Muth said she will introduce a bill that would place a three-year moratorium on data center development to give local governments time to evaluate its impacts on their communities.

Muth, a Democrat from the Philadelphia suburbs, said she didn’t expect any co-sponsors before the bill was published but now has four, including two Republicans. She said the unexpected support is probably because some members are hearing complaints from their constituents about the impact on their electric bills.

“People are rightfully upset about that,” she said. “I think that might be the reason why this has moved—public outrage.”

The state House sent a proposed $53.3 billion budget for the coming fiscal year to the Senate on Tuesday — the earliest it has initially passed a spending plan in nearly a decade.

The plan passed this week by the Democratic-controlled House has virtually no chance of making it through the Republican-led Senate and to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk as-is. But lawmakers, who have failed to pass a budget on time in 14 of the past 22 years, are at least moving the budget process forward earlier than usual.

“I’m actually going to praise what I believe is the intent of the majority party at this time,” House Minority Leader Jesse Topper, R-Bedford County, said in remarks on the House floor.

While Topper ultimately voted against the proposed spending plan, he said, “I think the intent of the majority party is to show that there is a path for an on-time budget this year, and I appreciate that.”

Last year’s budget impasse dragged on for 135 days, stopping billions of dollars in state funding from flowing to schools, counties and nonprofits across Pennsylvania.

“What this shows is the Senate, as well as taxpayers and voters at home, know what the House is doing and what the House can pass. Now it’s up to the Senate to show us what they can pass,” House Appropriations Chairman Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, said in a phone interview.

The budget passed the House on a 107-94 vote, with support from all Democrats and five Republicans.

It was the earliest the House had initially approved a budget since April 4, 2017, when the then-GOP-controlled chamber advanced a $31.5 billion plan on a 114-84 vote. Lawmakers would ultimately agree on a $32 billion plan. Last year, the House first passed a proposed budget in mid-July — two weeks after the state’s constitutionally mandated June 30 deadline to adopt a spending plan. Lawmakers wouldn’t reach a final budget agreement until Nov. 12.

The plan approved this week in the House mirrors the record $53.3 billion budget proposed by Shapiro in February.

The governor’s plan proposed using nearly $4.6 billion, or more than half, of the state’s largest reserve fund to balance. It also factors in receiving new revenue from legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use and taxing and regulating video gaming terminals that have become ubiquitous at bars, convenience stores, fraternal clubs and elsewhere.

The Legislature has yet to reach agreements on those two measures.

“We continue to have profound concerns about the level of spending in the budget proposed by Gov. Shapiro and passed by the House,” Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman and Senate Appropriations Chairman Scott Martin said in a joint statement.

“Moving a budget plan forward is an important step in the budget process, but much work remains to reach a final agreement which respects taxpayers both now and in the future,” the senators added. “We will continue to fight for a more fiscally responsible spending plan.”

The Senate is back in session Monday.