Democrats are spending $7 million on television ads focused on tying Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) to data centers, the latest effort by the party to hurt Republicans by linking them to the controversial issue.
After data centers emerged as an increasingly unpopular issue at the beginning of the year, Democrats were first to pin the topic on Republicans, to their great benefit. Republicans have begun privately acknowledging the damage the issue has done in many races and have begun maneuvering to respond. Defend the Vote, a Democratic political action committee, laid into the issue further with a $7 million ad buy in Ohio, Punchbowl reported, aiming to hand Husted’s seat to former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
“Jon Husted has been called ‘the face of AI data centers,’ and he earned that nickname. Husted’s taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from data center developers — then he got to work,” the ad said.
It claimed that the senator received $600,000 from data center interests and voted to give them “billions” in return. The Washington Examiner has reached out to Husted’s campaign for comment.
“Your money to build even more data centers in Ohio, driving electric bills even higher,” the ad continued.
“Husted gave data centers billions, you got stuck with the bill,” it concluded.
The ad will run across Ohio from Thursday to Oct. 12.
DEMOCRATS DENY GOP A MIDTERM WIN BY BLOCKING HUSTED DATA CENTER BILL
The Republican senator has caught on to how damaging the link has become and has already been moving to disassociate himself from it. He introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act in the Senate, which aimed to protect households from rising energy costs associated with data centers. Though it passed overwhelmingly in the House, 417-3, last month, it received a 57-43 vote in the Senate, failing to overcome the filibuster.
Though four Democratic senators supported the bill, the vast majority of Democrats opposed it on the grounds that it was a midterm stunt by Republicans, seeking to distance the party from data centers before the November elections.