A Republican Congressional candidate in Iowa has pitched himself as an anti-corruption crusader, swearing off corporate PAC donations and claiming to represent voters who’ve “been left behind by a broken political system that works for insiders and lobbyists.” But as rapid data center development in his northeastern Iowa district has spurred multiple construction moratoriums, former state Rep. Joe Mitchell has worked as one of those insiders, earning nearly $100,000 consulting for a “data center PR agency.”
Mitchell, a 29-year-old real estate developer worth as much as $21 million , is running for Iowa’s open 2nd Congressional District seat, which is being vacated by Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) as she runs for Senate. After serving two terms in the Iowa legislature from 2019 until 2023, Mitchell brought his expertise to KAOH Media, a public relations firm which, by its own description , “helps AI developers navigate public opinion, regulatory hurdles, and community concerns.”
“Data center developers count on us,” reads KAOH’s website.
According to financial disclosures reviewed by The Lever, KAOH paid Mitchell $92,500 in consulting fees between 2024 and 2025.
Mitchell also joined the 2024 Trump administration transition team and later worked for the Federal Housing Finance Agency before being appointed a regional administrator for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in July 2025.
During that time, Mitchell cheerleaded President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill tax-cut act, which he praised as “ historic ” and a “ huge deal .” According to The American Prospect , the final law awarded major tax breaks to data center developers as well as JPMorgan, which has provided billions in funding for data center deals.
Local Pushback
Data Center Map has identified 116 existing data center sites in the Hawkeye State, with operators including Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Researchers say that Iowa ranks among the top five states for data centers per capita.
Some Iowa municipalities are resisting. At least six cities and 10 counties have considered imposing limits on data centers. Several of those moratoriums are moving forward in the 2nd District, where Mitchell is running. That includes the city of Waterloo, where earlier this month council members interrupted unpopular plans for an 80,000-square-foot data center with a three-month construction moratorium .
Nearby, in Clayton County, plans to build a smaller, 1,500-square-foot Bitcoin mining center are also on hold after the county’s Board of Commissioners imposed a pause on data and digital mining center development until December 31, 2026 . At the time the moratorium passed last September, it was one of the first in the country .
And in Tama County, part of which is in the 2nd District, residents moved quickly in November 2025 to institute an “ immediate and indefinite” moratorium on data center construction until the zoning commission creates a local ordinance. The Tama County Board of Supervisors cited potential impacts on “agricultural resources, electricity infrastructure, water resources, and overall community character.”
According to executives at KHAO — where Mitchell was contracted — Americans’ opposition to data centers stems, in part, from ignorance.
“People often hear about power demand or tax incentives before they understand what a project will actually contribute locally,” KHAO CEO Brad McAfee told Newsweek , which identified his firm as a “data center PR agency.” “A controversy in one community can shape sentiment and policy conversations elsewhere almost overnight, and social media accelerates both legitimate concerns and misinformation.”
Right now, data center developers are losing the battle of public perception. Poll after poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans worry about the supercomputer complexes’ impacts on the environment and electric grid, and that above all, they don’t want data centers built in their communities.
In a recent conversation with the Des Moines Register , Mitchell wouldn’t rule out throwing his support behind AI regulation, noting that he “understand[s] the concerns that people have and that it’s scary.” However, he maintained that the U.S. needs “to win the AI race.”
“I don’t think we should rule out regulation, but at the same time, you have these CEOs of these companies like OpenAI, et cetera, that are putting these warning signs out there and it’s like, well, you have some responsibility to also self-regulate if you think that’s the case,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell has postured as anti-insider and anti-special interests, supporting term limits and a Congressional stock trading ban. But Salon reports that as a developer, Mitchell was president of a trade organization that spent nearly $75,000 on lobbyists in its fight against real estate regulation.
Mitchell has also sworn off donations from Big Business, saying he won’t “take a dime of corporate PAC money.” But in July, Iowa Starting Line found that Mitchell’s campaign accepted more than $17,500 from PACs “tied to the home builders and mortgage industry, the exact industry that he used to regulate for the federal government.”
Mitchell could not be reached by The Lever for comment.
This PR Populist Is Quiet About His Data Center Past
Aggregated summary from an independent source. Read the original at LeverNews.