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A super PAC tied to President Donald Trump has already spent about $1.5 million on a pair of congressional races in Colorado, highlighting the state’s increasing importance in this year’s battle over control of the U.S. House.
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No Going Back PAC, which is funded by Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, has spent $1 million helping Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton in the toss-up 8th Congressional District.
More surprising is the $450,000 the group has spent to benefit Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank of Colorado Springs in the 5th Congressional District.
The 5th District has never been represented by a Democrat. But the spending from the No Going Back PAC — and by other Republican groups — highlights just how worried the GOP is about losing the seat for the first time.
Crank faces a challenge from Democrat Jessica Killin, an Army veteran and the former chief of staff to the husband of then-Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Killin has been a strong fundraiser and has the backing of national Democrats, who think the 5th District may be in play because of shifting political trends in the Colorado Springs area, where the district is anchored.
No Going Back PAC, in addition to its spending on mailers in the district, is running TV ads featuring a photo of Killin wearing a hat celebrating former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. The ad’s narrator labels Killin, who grew up in Colorado Springs and returned to the city in June 2025, “a wealthy liberal lobbyist who just moved here last spring.”
Killin was a lobbyist for the United Services Automobile Association, the insurer for military veterans and their families known as USAA.
The ad also accuses Killin of “profiting off companies pushing for data centers.”
No Going Back PAC doesn’t have a website and The Colorado Sun couldn’t find any way to contact the organization about the claim. But the statement appears to allude to investments Killin’s husband’s venture capital firm — Fenway Summer — has made in companies that use data centers to function.
But there isn’t evidence that, as the ad implies, Killin or her family have directly “profited off data centers,” which are now ubiquitous in technology as well as securities investments. (For instance, someone who owns stock in Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and makes money on that investment has technically profited off data centers.)
The spot also claims that a firm run by Killin’s husband has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by tech companies “pushing for data centers.” That appears to be a questionable reference to FS Vector, another business that Killin’s husband, Raj Date, cofounded.
Some of FS Vector’s lobbying clients are technology companies that appear to use data centers, but The Sun couldn’t find examples of companies represented by FS Vector owning or operating data centers. One of FS Vector’s clients was the Digital Energy Council, a nonprofit that worked on power sources for data centers and cryptocurrency mining, but that organization has since been folded into another trade group.
Date, the former deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is not and has not been a lobbyist.
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Congressional candidates and super PACs are prohibited from working with each other, so Crank has no control over No Going Back PAC’s spending or messaging.
But Crank said during a recent debate that while he thinks data center decisions should be made by local communities and not Congress, he opposes a data center moratorium in El Paso County. (Trump has also been critical of communities that have opposed data centers.)
Killin didn’t take a position on an El Paso County data center moratorium during the debate — she agreed that it should be a local decision and not one made by Congress — though she called for federal regulations on artificial intelligence.
In a statement Monday to The Colorado Sun, Killin’s campaign said she supports a moratorium in El Paso County to stop Project Taurus, a data center planned in Colorado Springs.
Emily Dalgleish, Killin’s campaign manager, also highlighted how Crank has received campaign donations from people and organizations who would benefit from data center expansion, like utility and technology companies. Additionally, she criticized Crank for voting “yes” on a bill that would have barred states from passing laws regulating artificial intelligence for 10 years. The measure passed the House but failed in the Senate.
Finally, Dalgleish flagged that Crank supported a measure that was signed into law that allows data center companies to claim billions in tax breaks.
The No Going Back PAC spending comes after Trump acknowledged Crank and Evans at a White House event earlier in the month. He called them, and other vulnerable Republican members of Congress, out by name and said “I will be with you 100% of the way to November.”
The New York Times first reported the connection between No Going Back PAC and MAGA Inc.
Other Republican spending in the 5th District
No Going Back PAC isn’t the only Republican group spending in the 5th District in the lead-up to Election Day.
The conservative political nonprofits American Prosperity Alliance, Americans for Open Government, the American Action Network and the Republican Main Street Partnership have spent large sums of money in the district to help Crank. None of the groups reveal their donors.
American for Prosperity Action, a federal super PAC linked to the conservative political nonprofit Americans for Prosperity, which doesn’t reveal its donors, has spent nearly $400,000 on the district on Crank’s behalf.
The congressman used to work at Americans for Prosperity.
The National Republican Congressional Committee is also buying up ad time in the district, according to Federal Communications Commission filings.
National Democratic groups have reserved TV ad time in the district, too. AB PAC, a Democratic group known as American Bridge 21st Century, has spent nearly $300,000 in the district to help Killin.
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Ballots will start being mailed to voters Oct. 2.