Jocelyn Benson and John James face off in second debate

Well, on the political front, the candidates for governor faced off in their final debate. Things got heated, and the candidates truly put the battle in battleground state. A lot of big topics coming up, like affordability, tariffs, and education. But the most heated moments came as Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Congressman John James sparred over data centers. Fox 2's Dave Kinchin is live tonight with the details. Dave, no surprise, the data centers were kind of the real smoking issue here tonight. Yeah, the real smoking gun. And we're here outside Project Cannoli. That's what they call it, the Project Cannoli data center here. So whether it's a smoking gun or leaving or taking the cannoli, it was certainly one of the big issues that came up in this debate. data centers let's take a look right now because we can tell you how all the candidates the two weighed in here with this WDIV debate held in downtown Detroit Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson the Democrat and Congressman John James the Republican both trading barbs with each other each accusing the other of already making big money off of data centers arguing whose moratorium is stronger and who has already allegedly sold out the public on new data center construction. Now we'll go to our next piece of video, which is Project Cannoli, where we are here in Van Buren Township, a data center that crossed a critical threshold. The Van Buren Township Planning Commission voting 5-1 to grant final site plan approval for Google's massive one gigawatt hyperscale data center known internally as Project Cannoli now that means opening the door to full speed construction of the near 300 acre site that sits close to Haggerty Road and I-94 here's how both candidates weighed in on the data center issue tonight he voted not his spouse he voted four times to stop local citizens from having a voice and whether data centers could come to your town. And he, not his spouse, he also has bought stock in data center companies and got millions from it. And then he, not his spouse, he passed tax breaks to protect those companies. That's the sharp contrast in this race. I have a plan to ensure that your voices are protected and heard in whether a data center can come to your town. He's voted against that right that you should have. She's put $370,000 into her pocket and she omitted that in 2025. She's throwing mud to obscure the fact that she's dirty as sin on this these are the facts if you want to learn more go to datacenterdarlings.com to see exactly how deep she is into this the fact of the matter is she and her husband bulldozed the will of the people of Saline to carpet over the productive green farmland against her commitment of course she's going to come up with a moratorium after they've already made out with 370,000 both major party nominees for governor have their own plans as far as a data center moratorium we will take a closer look at that tonight on the edge we'll see where the plans do compare where they are vastly different and continue to help educate voters as we are just weeks away from the November election we're live in Van Buren Township Dave Kim Chen Fox 2 News yeah certainly data center is front and center but also the other issues of course about affordability that seems to be a huge issue for any race if you're running for office right now across the country and the other one is about that gas tax moratorium or that holiday did they talk about putting a pause on the state gas tax yeah both candidates really talked about that Secretary of State Benson tried to link Congressman James to the ongoing war in the Middle East or the war in Iran which has certainly been blamed for driving up the cost of fuel and of course uh congressman james has said that he has certainly endorsed measures to make uh the pain less painful at the pump to try to get those gas prices down to around the three dollar mark which is what he says gas prices have been seen at in some other midwestern states all right our Dave Kinchen for us live tonight on the election beat tonight thanks for that