Sherrod Brown, the Democratic former senator from Ohio, is campaigning to return to office in November's midterm elections, focusing on the impact of datacenters. Brown has spent the past year discussing how the "system is rigged" against Ohioans, recently highlighting the growth of datacenters in the state.
Brown described seeing large construction sites for datacenters in north-west Ohio, stating that these installations consume land and water, and can increase electricity prices. He argues that these facilities, which are part of Ohio's AI boom, offer little benefit to local communities.
The former senator has made opposition to datacenter developers a central theme of his campaign, referring to his Republican opponent, Senator Jon Husted, as "the face of datacenters." Brown alleges that Husted is responsible for the presence of approximately 200 datacenters in the state, noting that Ohio provided $2.5bn in tax breaks for these facilities between 2017 and 2024, a period when Husted served as lieutenant governor.
Husted's campaign spokesperson, Amy Natoce, denied Brown's claims, stating that Husted, as lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2025, lacked the authority to grant tax breaks. Natoce also highlighted Husted's support for the Ratepayer Protection Act, which aimed to make datacenters pay for their grid impacts, but was blocked by Senate Democrats.
Recent polling from the New York Times and Siena University suggests that voters believe Brown would manage datacenter development more effectively than Husted by an 11-percentage point margin. The overall race remains close, with Brown leading Husted by three percentage points, within the survey's margin of error. A memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee in August warned that the datacenter issue could be a significant challenge for Husted.