Red, White and Who? The Anti-AI Voters

Hey guys, the midterms are here, and our special election series Red, White, and Who is Back. For the next four weeks, we'll be bringing you to four places around the country looking at four issues that are shaping four important races. Episodes will come out every Wednesday morning up until the election, and after the results come in, we'll be there to help make sense of it. Alright, our first stop is Ohio. Here we go. So when you were a kid, this was just far away. Yeah, when I was a kid, none of this was here. Brandon Bernard is giving a tour of his hometown of Patascala, in central Ohio. So here is Intel. This is Google sites right here to the left. There's the Amazon. Look at that Amazon web service. Now again, all of this was cornfields. And what is this going to be now? Ah, Davisoners. They go on for miles. Enormous, mostly windowless buildings. Reporter Kamikworter, and producer Matt Kwong went along for the ride. People in, you know, central Ohio just call it Davisoner Alley. Data center Alley. Wow, it is just one FF, I guess. Wow, those cranes. Look at this enormous cranes, like giant sort of monsters. But wait, there's more. Politically, this is deep red Ohio. Donald Trump won the county by almost 30 points in 2024. They're very, very, very, very, very Republican. Brandon is 37, an executive chef at a hospital system, and a long time Republican voter. He says he voted for Trump three times, mostly motivated by border security and government waste. He even flew a mega flag outside his house. This year, though, Brandon says he's voting for the Democrat in Ohio's center race, and it's all because he hates these data centers. He's also volunteering with an anti-data center group called Conservo Ohio, gathering signatures to try and get a moratorium. If I could build a time machine and go back, and I said, you're going to be voting against the Republicans. I'm going to send you four s**t. But you wouldn't believe that. I ain't that way. You would have said, what, what's a data center? How's that? So this isn't a dramatic embrace of the Democratic Party. But now these data centers are making you support local Democratic candidates. And that's why you've made a decision. Yep. Brandon's political shift is one that's happening around the country. As data centers emerge as a major election issue this November, here's Cam. If data centers have become a battleground issue, the epicenter is in Ohio. It is really the central place where this has become the slugfest and where politicians are scrambling to come up with answers for voters who are very angry and worried about data centers. In the Ohio center race, Democrat Sherrod Brown has been going after Republican John Houston's record on data centers. And he's winning over a long time Republican voters, voters like Brandon. Republicans are very worried about Republican strategists that I've been talking to, not only in Ohio, but elsewhere. It's because of people like Brandon, because they, that is the backbone of Republican voters. And if you're losing them, you've got a problem. From the journal, this is Red, White, and Who. Our series about the road to the midterms. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Wednesday, October 7. Coming up on the show, how AI data centers became one of the biggest issues in the midterm elections. How important are AI in data centers in this election season? If you'd asked me that question four months ago, I would have said it was kind of important. But at this point, it has become for certainly a lot of battleground states. It has become the critical issue. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that 62% of Americans support putting a pause on building data centers. Around Ohio, where there are more than 200 of them, Cam and Matt heard a litany of complaints from residents. Concerns about water. You know, they reassured me that our water won't be affected, but they can't guarantee that. About farmland. It's hard to visualize how much land that they have consumed that was nice, rich farmland. Secrecy. And I guess my biggest problem is that all of this is done in secret. Our trustees did all of this in an executive sessions. And utility bills. Since the data center boom, our electricity bill has probably close to doubled more right now. Tech executives have said they hope to be more transparent moving forward and have committed to paying more for the power needed to run data centers. They also say they're investing more in local communities. Underneath some of resident specific concerns is a general growing unease about AI itself. Has headlines about rogue bots and AI doomsday scenarios dominate the headlines. You can't judge things by yard signs, but I drove across a lot of Ohio in the last, you know, last week or so. And you see in every little town there's people, you know, on their lawns, they have political signs, political yard signs. And most of those signs that I saw were not for candidates. They were saying no data centers. I didn't see one sign saying, bring on the data centers. Thank God, you know, it's good for American jobs or anything. It was all get rid of that band data centers, stop the data centers. Politically, this is still a pretty new fight. Republicans and Democrats both spent years supporting the growth of the tech industry. Neither party has a long record of campaigning against data centers. As a result, the backlash is scrambling traditional politics. And voters are still sorting out a basic question. Who do they blame? In Ohio, the Democratic candidate, Sherrod Brown, is trying to put the blame on the Republican incumbent, Senator John Houston. I'm John Houston, and I approve this message. Join our team and give today. Houston is pretty new to Washington. In 2024, he was appointed to fill JD Vance's Senate seat. But it's been a long time fixture of Ohio politics, serving as Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor. It was during his time as Lieutenant Governor that Houston was involved in promoting tech investment. A time when Ohio seemed to want these data centers. Here's Houston from 2019 at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Google data center. This will fuel the economy for many years when we're talking to anybody in the globe. We say, look, where's the tech hub in the Midwest? I think it's going to be Columbus, Ohio. What is Houston's record on data centers? The Republicans have been in power for a long time in Ohio, and their basic plan for economic development in the state was similar to what a lot of Republican states have adopted, which is large incentive packages, non-disclosure agreements, and inviting major corporations in. And Houston really invited, you know, he was part of this economic program, and he certainly was supportive initially of a lot of these data centers coming in because they sounded great. Ohio offered generous tax incentives on the expensive equipment inside data centers, and soon the big companies were coming. Amazon, Google, Meta. But over the last four years, as Ohio started building more and more massive data centers to feed the AI boom, many Ohioans started to realize they didn't actually like them. It became, as one Republican official said to me, it sort of became the Wild West in Ohio, and people were, you know, farms, huge tracks of land that were farmland were suddenly being converted into these data centers. For people like Brandon, it's meant that the place he grew up looks totally different now, instead of driving past farmland. Now, in his eyes, the area is dominated by giant gray monstrosities. What was the bell that went off in your head? I learned a brand new data center could be coming one mile two miles away from my house. How did you hear about it? Do you remember that moment? My mom told me about it, and you know, a mile away from schools that my kids go to. So if they start having any health issues, do I get to sue these data centers? Who's finally actually responsible for this? At night, Brandon says the sky over parts of his town can glow. The first time he noticed that he thought he was looking at the northern light. lights. And then there's the noise. It's just a constant, a faint train, like a train that's just been like a mile away, that these people are hearing 24/7, the constant humming noise. The man who brand-and-blames for much of this is John Houston, the Republican Senator. Last week, our producer Matt caught up with Houston at a campaign event outside Cleveland. And he asked him, "How do you win back voters like Brandon?" Well, I could make that, that's a pretty easy one, frankly, because I'm the only one fighting to make sure that the data centers pay their own cost. We have legislation that's pending the past, the House of Representative, 417-3, my bill. Houston is positioning himself as someone who will protect Ohioans from the costs associated with data centers. And he was telling Matt about a bill he proposed, called the Rake Payer Protection Act. The legislation was designed to prevent people's electricity bills from going up when a new data center gets built. It's currently stalled in the Senate. Senate Democrats didn't support the bill because they said it didn't have enough enforcement behind it. Houston says Democrats blocked a bipartisan solution. He also said his opponent Sherrod Brown didn't address the issue during his time in the Senate. So what exactly is Brown's message? That's after the break. Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, represented Red leaving Ohio in the Senate for 18 years, until he lost reelection in 2024. Now, he wants his old job back. He's built much of his political identity around organized labor in the working class. And when he first announced he was running to get back into the Senate, he didn't talk much about data centers. I was with him a few months ago, and he was talking about the economy a lot, of course, and gas prices. But he didn't really mention data centers at all. And just seeing him this last weekend, you know, he talked about data centers a lot. He talked about a few other things, but he really slammed home data centers. Brown has made data centers, one of the center pieces of his campaign strategy. He's released a lot of attack ads on the subject. Data centers, compliments mostly of John Houston, were given $2.5 billion in tax subsidies. In the last month or so, Sherrod Brown has just started pounding him over and over again, John Houston over data centers. And data centers have really risen to the top of as the key issue here. He's been called the face of data centers in Ohio. Why? Because John Houston spent years aggressively recruiting data centers to this. Brown is making the same case on the campaign trail. Recently, Cam and Matt caught up with him at a United auto workers hall in Warren, Ohio. Thank you, everybody. Can I do this without the mic? The topic of data centers kept coming up again and again. Big data center corporations in these out of state, big tech corporations come in, buy up this farmland, suck up their water. You didn't know why you didn't know they were coming. Brown is also campaigning on all the things Democrats usually do, affordability, healthcare, anti-corruption. But increasingly, in order to appeal to traditionally Republican voters, he's using data centers as a way in. It's going to make Ohio's electricity rates already have gone up faster than all but one other state. And if you look at if you turn on the TV in Ohio and you see a Sherrod Brown at, he's really blasting. He used it as you know, the face of data centers. After Brown finished speaking at the Union Hall, people got up from their folding chairs and lined up for photos. Brown stayed behind for questions from reporters. Cam asked him why data centers and suddenly becomes such a big part of his campaign. Yeah, well, last time I saw you was in Shilacati and we talked about the economy. That was a big factor with you. You didn't mention data centers because it wasn't that hot of an issue a couple months ago. Why do you think it's come on so strong? Well, it's an example of how big out-of-state corporations and billionaires come to the state, get tax giveaways, don't consult with anybody, and get help from John Houston in a big, big way. He's the point, man. He used his campaign as criticized Brown for supporting a data center a decade ago. When Amazon announced a major data center investment in Ohio in 2015, Brown celebrated it as great news. Our producer Matt asked him about it. One investment. No billions of dollars in tax breaks and right away it was clear that then when Houston started bringing all these in, he's the guy. He's the point guy. He's brought him in. That was one case ten years ago and I've led the charge and pointing out the damage they've done. Brown has not gone so far as to do what some anti-data center activists are calling for, a pause on building new data centers in the state. And that might be partly because of who that might alienate. Brown's anti-data center ads frustrated some of the construction unions that have endorsed him. So one group strongly supporting the data centers, of course, have been the construction unions because this has been a boon. They are busy, busy, busy, and we saw their workers, hard hats, guys doing a lot of business in the hotels where we were staying packed with workers coming in subcontractors. So it's definitely great for business if you're a construction worker. It's great work. And shared Brown has sort of made himself as a good friend of the unions and he has been throughout his career. And so there is some tension there. Yeah, but he's sort of saying, like, I think that the better bet is to be anti-data center, even if that's going to hurt some of some union support potentially. Right. And he's jumping on that and other Democrats are jumping on that. Is there a sense that Brown's focus on AI data centers is working? We're going to have to see what happens in the midterms, but the polls are showing that he is rising in the polls, that he's leading in the polls. I mean, some of the polls show him leading by a few points. Some by substantially more. We're going to have to see, but if Sheriff Brown, who was voted out in 2024, comes back and takes JD Vance's seat after campaigning largely on data centers, certainly for the tail end of this campaign. That's going to be an interesting message for any politician who has a data center in their state or in their community across the country. The rage against data centers unfold display in battleground Michigan. The Wisconsin governor's race is heating up and the debate over data centers is playing a role. Backlash against data centers grows in Texas, according to new surveys, how the issue could potentially impact the November election. For some Republican candidates, President Donald Trump's views on the issue could make things more complicated. Just days ago, Trump came to Ohio to campaign for Houston. While Houston has spent the final weeks of the race trying to reassure voters concerned about data centers, Trump offered a much simpler message. America needs them. It seems like data centers is one of these issues that's scrambling the political landscape again. It doesn't sort of neatly fit into a Republican or Democratic issue. It's just like, whoever voters' deem is more responsible for the data centers that are in their community, that's the party they want to punish. I think you're 100 percent right. I think that's it, and right now that is the Republicans. They're the ones who are having to explain and try to convince voters that things aren't as bad as they're being perceived, but they have a tough road. We met people who were Democratic-leaning, people who are now incredibly animated by the data center issue. It's crystal clear to them, and they're very excited to vote against Republicans. Then we met Republicans who feel that they've been betrayed by big tech, and they are turning like Brandon to the Democrats for help. Then you have Republicans who are sort of disgusted with the whole thing or angry about it, and they're just not going to turn up. And all those things, if they prove to be true, are going to be terrible for the Republican party in November. So you spent all this time in Ohio talking to a lot of people there, and when you were leaving and getting back on the airplane to go back home to Atlanta, what was going through your mind? The main thing I was thinking about was to stand with Brandon at that data center. I mean, he was on one side, there was an empty field across the street. On a side street, there were houses with American flags and some no data center signs, and then there was this enormous enormous facility. And he had this look on his face of just shock. I mean, he's seen it tons of times. He drove us up to it. He sees it all the time. And he just looked bewildered. Like, how did this happen? How did this get here so fast? And there's no going back. It's not like that's going to become farmland again. It's gone. Next week on Red White and Who? Another issue reshaping the midterms. The cost of living. This time in Arizona. Everything's more expensive. Electrical or power costs are rising. Water costs are rising. Food costs are rising. Gosh, where do I stop? Red White and Who is part of the journal, which is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. This episode was produced by Matt Kwong and edited by Catherine Brewer, audio engineering by Peter Leonard. I'm Ryan Knudson. Our theme music is by so wily and remixed by Peter Leonard, fact-checking by Nicole Pasolka. Special thanks to Shavan Hughes, Chris Matthews, Sarah Platt, Pierce Singy, and the whole journal team. The journal will be back with a regular episode this afternoon. And the next installment of Red White and Who will come out on Wednesdays. See you then.