Bridge Michigan62%
Fact check: Is John James backed by data center developers? 48%
By Simon D. Schuster0%
7/21/2026, 9:11:08 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Self-Serving Bias, and Recency Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 13.5% saturation with 139 hits. Analysis detected 1,325 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,032 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 49.8% and a BS Rank of 48% (10,171 of 19,472 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 52.20% of the article peer group.
Perry Johnson accused John James of taking more than $145,000 from interests that stand to profit from data centers
Campaign finance records show his claims are mostly true, although imprecise
Most of the donations James received were to his federal campaigns, well before his gubernatorial run
In a new two-minute ad , GOP gubernatorial candidate Perry Johnson attacks primary rival and US Rep.
John James for alleged ties to data center developers, including political donations.
Data centers needed to power the ballooning thirst for artificial intelligence have become a hot topic on the campaign trail, and candidates from both major parties have made a point of trying to tie their opponents to the facilities.
Johnson’s new ad replays comments he made in a July 8 Republican gubernatorial debate in Southfield, where he claimed James has received $107,000 in political contributions from “the people building the data centers” and $39,000 “by the people powering the data centers.”
James responds by noting he has received more than “8,000 Michiganders all over this state.”
Johnson has argued candidates should return any money taken from data center developers.
He’s proposed a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale facilities, while James has called for more safeguards.
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Bridge Michigan examined both state and federal campaign finance records to see if Johnson’s political donation claims hold up under scrutiny.
Data Center-related donors
Johnson appears to be referencing the Rakolta family and its firm Walbridge, a Detroit-based construction firm that is building data centers, including a massive Saline facility the company has touted as its largest ever project.
To that end, Johnson’s claim of $107,000 in political contributions to James is mostly accurate, though not precise.
A Bridge review revealed a slightly higher total in related donations, but most came during prior campaigns, before the data center boom and James’ current gubernatorial run.
Federal Election Commission records show members of the Rakolta family, along with past and present executives of Walbridge, donated a combined $97,200 to James’ prior campaigns for US Senate and House.
The majority of the money was contributed during the 2022 and 2024 campaign cycles, when James was running to represent Macomb County in the US House.
The donors included John Rakolta and his children, John Rakolta III and Lauren Rakolta, who founded, own and run Walbridge.
Michael Haller, Walbridge’s CEO, and his spouse along with Randall Abdallah, a member of Walbridge’s board, also gave to James’ campaign.
John Rakolta is a longtime GOP booster and has also been a supporter of President Donald Trump, who he shared a stage with in 2024 during a Trump campaign stop in Detroit.
More recently, James’ gubernatorial campaign disclosed holding a December 2025 fundraiser at an (albeit misspelled) Bloomfield address that property records show is owned by Lauren Rakolta.
Lauren Rakolta and Haller, the Walbridge CEO, have also donated a combined $16,650 to James’ gubernatorial campaign, according to state disclosures.
All told, Bridge tracked at least $113,850 in contributions to various James campaign funds from the Rakoltas or Walbridge officials since 2018.
Bridge was not able to independently verify Johnson’s assertion that “the people powering the data centers” had donated $39,000 to James, though combined donations from utility PACs and workers do approach that total.
Records show employees of DTE Energy and Consumers Energy — the state’s largest utilities — have given at least $8,616 to James’ gubernatorial campaign, along with $16,026 to prior federal campaign accounts.
James’ US House campaign also received $6,000 from employee-funded utility PACs in 2025.
Employees and a PAC connected to ITC Holdings, which is a major builder of electrical transmission infrastructure in Michigan, gave James’ federal campaigns a combined $3,000.
That brings the total donated to James to nearly $34,000, less than the $39,000 that Johnson claimed.
Johnson has not elaborated on his total, and it’s unclear whether his claim intended to encompass employees or political action committees from other electric utilities or suppliers.
Johnson accurately pointed out James has accepted money from major data center developers and the utilities that supply them with electricity, though the amounts Johnson cited may not have been precisely correct.
But most of those contributions predated James’ run for governor and came before a slew of major data centers were planned for Michigan and became a major political issue.
Other issues: Edited footage
There are other places Johnson’s ad distorts reality.
In the video, James appears to stutter and pause while responding to Johnson’s claims in the debate.
That didn’t actually happen.
He quickly touted support from Michiganders across the state.
The ad cuts to a different debate response from James: “Perry, I know when you were born, black people could still be bought and sold in this country, but no one owns me.”
Johnson has claimed the line constituted James “playing the race card” and has called on James to apologize and retract the statement, a demand the James campaign has ignored.
In reality, James touted his individual donors and concluded his rebuttal by saying “I’m here because I want to talk about the facts, and frankly I would love to get on with the debate, sir.”
Johnson has been able to evade accusations of donor influence by self-funding his gubernatorial campaign.
The wealthy businessman had spent more than $23 million on ads through mid-June, according to ad tracking data.
The public has not yet seen any campaign finance disclosures from gubernatorial candidates in 2026, leaving an incomplete picture of who is funding candidates just two weeks before the Aug. 4 primary.
That’s because Michigan’s campaign finance law leaves a long gap between disclosures.
Candidates up for election this year — including James and Johnson — have only reported campaign finances through the end of 2025.
On Friday candidates will make their first filings for 2026, meaning voters won’t see a full picture of campaign donors and spending until 11 days before the Aug. 4 primary — a full month after absentee ballots were mailed out.
Analysis
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