A new campaign ad from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown attacking Ohio’s data center boom features a Lancaster facility owned by Google — a company whose corporate PAC has given $20,000 to Brown over the course of his political career, according to Fox News Digital.
The Sept. 4 ad targets Republican Sen. Jon Husted and includes an Ohioan who blames Husted for leading “the push to bring data centers to Ohio,” tying the industry’s growth to “higher electric bills.” The Lancaster data center shown in the ad opened in 2023.
Fox News Digital also reported that Brown has received additional contributions from individuals who lobby for Google, including two whose firms have worked on issues such as permitting, grid reliability and energy affordability.
The overlap between the ad’s target and Brown’s donor history has drawn criticism from Ohio Republicans. Mehek Cooke, a GOP strategist and attorney, said the contradiction deserves an explanation.
“Apparently, Google is terrible enough to put in a campaign attack ad, but perfectly acceptable when the political contributions are coming in,” Cooke told Fox News Digital. “That is the contradiction Brown needs to answer. If Google’s Lancaster investment is so bad for Ohio, why was Google political money acceptable to Sherrod Brown?”
The dispute puts the Lancaster data center — and the broader question of how the data center industry affects energy demand and electricity costs in Fairfield County and across Ohio — at the center of the state’s Senate race. Brown’s ad frames Husted’s support for the industry as a political liability, while Republican critics are instead highlighting Brown’s past financial ties to Google-linked donors.
Neither the Brown campaign, the Husted campaign, nor Google had responded publicly as of the original reporting.
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