‘System is rigged’: Democrat Sherrod Brown puts datacenter danger at heart of populist Senate bid
Ohio former senator attacks Republican rival as the ‘face of datacenters’ as he wraps AI concerns into pro-worker message Sherrod Brown, the Democratic former senator from Ohio hoping to return to office in November’s midterm elections, has spent the past year traveling across his home state explaining to voters about all the ways the “system is rigged” against them. Recently, he’s been telling…
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat seeking re-election in November, is making datacenter development a key issue in his Senate campaign. Brown, 73, argues that these massive facilities, brought on by the AI boom, are harmful to Ohioans and that Republican opponent Jon Husted, the current face of datacenters, is responsible. Brown claims that Husted, appointed by then-Governor Mike DeWine in 2025, was the one who facilitated the tax breaks for datacenters in the state.
According to a report from Ohio’s chamber of commerce, the state provided $2.5 billion in tax breaks for these facilities from 2017 to 2024, during Husted’s tenure as lieutenant governor. Brown has targeted Husted with billboards and a website accusing him of the tax breaks and questioning his commitment to lowering energy costs.
Despite Husted’s denial of having any control over tax breaks, a recent poll conducted by the New York Times and Siena University shows that voters believe Brown would handle datacenter development better than Husted, by an 11-percentage point margin. This issue has the potential to be a game-changer in the race, as Democrats aim to retake the Senate and reduce Trump's influence.
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