Republicans are losing in Ohio and they're starting to panic, according to an internal memo released Wednesday.
Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt obtained a revealing memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), posting it on X Wednesday. A recent Fox News poll shows that former Sen. Sherrod Brown continues to hold a lead over appointed Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH). But the NRSC claims it's a dead heat.
According to the memo, Republicans in Ohio know that they can't win on economic issues and instead are pivoting to talk about something else: promoting AI data centers. To do it, they desperately need "big tech" to help.
"Campaigns or party committees can not fix the toxic brand of an entire segment of the economy," the memo revealed "The companies that need these projects built have to fix how Ohioans see them: who benefits, who pays and why a community should want one. Until that happens, the issue will continue to dominate this race. If it is still this potent in November, elected officials everywhere will treat Ohio as their reason to work against data centers in the future. If voters' perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio."
Former MS NOW host Chuck Todd called it "really quite striking that the NRSC isn’t beating around the bush ... they are begging for big tech to bring in reinforcements pronto in Ohio."
Husted has been promoting tax cuts to bring in more data centers, while Brown is against them, arguing that large tech corporations shouldn't receive public subsidies while also driving up water and energy bills for locals.
"If [Husted] loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one," the memo says. "This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle."
Axios explained that tech CEOs and top Republicans are quickly realizing that while Americans like using AI, they don't want all of the bad things associated with it.
"They tell us internal polls show data centers are as popular as spent nuclear waste, and more broadly have become a proxy for feelings about AI," said Axios.
There are already 4,000 data centers across the country, the report said, and there are plans for at least 3,000 more. A May Gallup poll showed that 7 in 10 Americans oppose building the AI data centers.
Brown spent much of the summer pressing an ad campaign that attacked Husted as "the face of data centers in Ohio."
Reprinted with permission from AlterNet