Sherrod Brown puts Ohio data centers at center of Senate comeback campaign

Sherrod Brown has made Ohio’s data centers a central issue in his campaign to return to the US Senate, arguing at a recent event in Lima that the projects impose costs on nearby communities. In a report published Thursday, October 8, The Guardian described the Democrat’s effort to tie Republican Sen. Jon Husted to their development ahead of November’s election. Husted’s campaign disputes Brown’s account of his role.

Brown, 73, told people at a Lima coffee shop about driving past farmland in northwest Ohio and seeing cranes and trucks at a data-center construction site. He said the facilities consume land and water and that electricity prices rise after they are built. Those are Brown’s campaign claims: The Guardian’s account does not establish that a particular facility caused a measured increase in local power bills.

Why Brown is targeting Jon Husted over data centers

Brown calls Husted the ‘face of datacenters’ and has accused him of being responsible for 200 facilities in the state. This week, Brown’s campaign announced billboards saying ‘See that datacenter? Jon Husted did that’ and a website mapping Ohio facilities, according to The Guardian. The campaign is using the projects to make Brown’s broader argument that powerful interests shape decisions affecting Ohio residents.

Brown cited a state chamber of commerce report finding $2.5 billion in tax breaks for data centers from 2017 through 2024. Husted served as Ohio’s lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2025, overlapping with much of that period. The reported total does not establish that Husted personally approved those tax breaks or caused individual projects to be built.

Husted became a senator in 2025 when Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him to the seat vacated by JD Vance after Vance became vice-president. The winner in November will serve the remainder of that Senate term, which expires at the end of 2028. Brown lost his 2024 reelection bid to Republican Bernie Moreno in a state where voters backed Donald Trump by 11 percentage points, according to The Guardian.

How the issue has grown in Ohio

The Guardian reported that nearly 140 Ohio communities had enacted moratoriums on new data-center construction, citing the Ohio Capital Journal. DeWine announced a pause on tax exemptions for the buildings in May. Both developments preceded Thursday’s report; they help explain why a dispute over where facilities are built and who bears their costs has become prominent in the Senate contest.

The issue had already drawn attention from Republicans. In August, Axios reported that it had obtained a National Republican Senatorial Committee memo warning AI companies that data centers could damage the party’s prospects in Ohio. Axios said the memo called the subject a ‘sleeper issue’ and urged companies to explain who benefits from projects and who pays. Axios also reported that Brown had spent millions on summer ads calling Husted the ‘face of data centers in Ohio.’

A New York Times/Siena poll reported by The Guardian last week found voters favored Brown over Husted by 11 percentage points on handling data-center development. Brown’s three-point lead in the overall race was within that survey’s margin of error. The issue-specific result shows a difference in voters’ stated views; it cannot establish that Brown’s argument will determine the election.

Construction jobs complicate Brown’s argument

Data-center construction also provides work for union members whom Brown has long sought to represent. Lee Daher, a business representative for northwest Ohio’s Carpenters Local Union 351, told The Guardian the facilities are a substantial source of employment for members, with work expected for years. His local supports Brown, and Daher said Brown’s position on the projects had not reduced that support.

Brown argues that workers also care about electricity bills and having a say in local projects. His campaign message extends beyond data centers to affordability, tariffs and Medicaid cuts; when asked in Lima for an idea to lower costs, he proposed expanding the child tax credit. Dan Birdsong, a University of Dayton political science lecturer, told The Guardian that data centers may help Brown appeal to rural voters and leave Husted exposed because of his prior involvement. That is Birdsong’s assessment, not a demonstrated electoral effect.

The dispute leaves several material questions open. The reported tax-break total does not identify who authorized each incentive, and the accounts cited here do not measure the effect of a specific Ohio facility on water use, electricity bills or employment. Voters are being offered sharply different accounts of the projects’ costs and benefits as they choose who will hold the Senate seat through 2028.