Fervor over data centers fires up competitive Ohio Senate race

# Fervor over data centers fires up competitive Ohio Senate race

by Helen Huiskes - 08/19/26 3:17 PM ET

One of the most competitive Senate races this year is pivoting around data centers.

The contest in Ohio between incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) and former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is a key example of how the increasingly controversial issue is playing a role in this cycle's politics, and both sides think it could be decisive. How the Ohio race turns out could be a bellwether for data center politics nationwide.

Husted is running for a full term after being appointed in 2024 to serve out the remainder of now-Vice President Vance's Senate term. Brown, a longtime senator who lost his own seat the same year, is looking for a comeback. It's a highly sought prize for both parties, essential to winning the majority.

One recent Fox News survey had Brown at 53 percent to Husted's 45 percent. Election analysts have rated the Ohio Senate contest as a toss-up.

Building on that momentum, Brown's campaign has begun hitting Husted with messaging targeting his record on data centers. Three ads so far have highlighted Husted's support of tax breaks for data center developers while he was lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2025.

"Jon Husted led the charge, he was the point man to bring these data centers to Ohio," Brown said at a campaign rally in July. "He delivered billions of dollars in sweetheart tax deals. Ohioans now pay thousands more on their utility bills. It's exactly what people hate about politics."

Husted's campaign points to his support for efforts to make data center developers carry their share of the utility costs. He introduced a bill last month that would establish a federal standard for requiring developers to cover costs and return unused power.

"Sen. Husted introduced legislation requiring data center companies to pay for the power they use and return excess electricity to the grid — a commonsense solution that supports America's growing technology infrastructure while protecting reliable, affordable energy for Ohio families," said Amy Natoce, Husted campaign spokesperson. "Sherrod Brown had three decades in Congress to lead on this issue. Instead, he did nothing and is suddenly pretending to care in the middle of an election year."

"Jon Husted led the charge to bring hundreds of data centers to Ohio and blamed families for skyrocketing utility rates that he caused," Brown campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer told The Hill on Wednesday. "Now, Husted is so worried about his toxic record that he is begging his special interest buddies and corporate friends to come and bail out his failing campaign. Ohioans – not Jon Husted and his billionaire friends – should get to decide if data centers are built in their community."

There's reason to believe the issue is sticky enough to affect the race. The Senate Republican campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), wrote in a private memo this week to AI companies that the Brown campaign's central focus on data centers spells trouble for public opinion on data centers if Husted were to lose.

The NRSC urged companies to make a better case for themselves and do it fast: explaining who benefits, who pays for higher costs and why communities should want data centers.

Chris Johnson, Republican political strategist who leads the American Energy Leadership Institute, said Husted is looking at the long game by not calling for a moratorium or other short-term fixes to the data center panic or leaning too far in the other direction.

"He has the benefit of, it's not in his jurisdiction or purview as a senator," Johnson said. "But I think it's also smart to not go out there and say this is the greatest thing ever, it's going to solve all our problems, all the jobs that we lost due to deindustrialization in Ohio are going to be saved by this stuff. I don't think he needs to do that. I think the benefits will speak for themselves."

Ohio has 240 data centers, according to Data Center Map, with new projects on the way. Nvidia and OpenAI this week announced a new "AI factory" coming to Portsmouth, across the Ohio River from Kentucky.

Some residents have already tried pushing back, including citizens in Grove City, who fought to get a provision on the November ballot that would amend the city's charter to require a referendum before any large-scale data center development can move forward. A statewide movement, Conserve Ohio, is pushing to get an amendment to the state's constitution to ban construction of data centers using more than 25 megawatts of energy per month.

Some polling shows that data centers are broadly unpopular with a majority of Americans: 41 percent surveyed by Public First in July said they would oppose a data center being built near them. That's a change from even six months ago. And Democratic voters are more likely than Republicans to oppose data centers, although the shift in support showed up in both parties.

There are some 3,000 operational data centers nationwide, and more than one thousand additional centers are in various stages of development. The backlash is causing politicians around the country to reverse course from backing them. Multiple governors have signed moratoriums or serious restrictions on new data centers, including Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in New York and Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) in Pennsylvania.

The gubernatorial candidates in Ohio have both come out in favor of restrictions on data center construction.

Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate, has said she supports a "conditional moratorium" to make sure developers are transparent, cover all their utility costs, use only union labor, and fit other environmental and community development requirements.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate, said he will sign an executive order on day one if elected that would halt new construction until legislation could get passed requiring data centers to meet his conditions, including making electricity bills free and property taxes lower for locals.

The data center messaging in the Senate campaign, Johnson said, is probably Brown's attempt to further energize Democratic voters who are the most opposed to data centers.

"I think what he's trying to do is jazz up all those further-left folks into a base play, where you're trying to get as much turnout from the sort of harder-left folks, and those people are motivated by the data center stuff in a way that is very unique to them," Johnson said.

Mark Walker, a Republican strategist based in Ohio, said Brown is looking to win back union leaders he lost in 2024 with the focus on data centers. But the data center debate, Walker said, while a hot topic, is probably less important to voters than broader affordability concerns.

"Push comes to shove, few people will be voting primarily based on their opposition to data centers," Walker said.

"If for no other reason, they have a regional factor, meaning the closer you are to one, the more likely you are to be against it, and the further you are from one, the less exercised you are about the notion that there's data centers popping up in Ohio. There's a NIMBY quality to this, a 'not in my backyard' quality to this, that makes it less of a political force than something like gas prices, which affects everybody who drives."

Updated at 4:50 p.m. EDT