Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) speaks during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 21, 2026 in Washington.
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Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) appeared with Vice President J.D. Vance at a southwestern Ohio steel mill on Friday to defend President Donald Trump’s energy and economic policies as Republicans warned that a backlash over data centers could jeopardize his seat.
Husted’s comments came days after the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) warned in a memo that data centers have become a “serious problem” this election cycle as Americans become increasingly concerned about the impact they have on their utility bills.
Ohio has several large data center projects that could cost more than $500 billion, including a planned 10 gigawatt campus in Pike County.
But rising power costs are a result of Democratic policies, not data center construction, Husted said.
“You want to lower your electricity bill, but tell me why it’s going up, because Congress, under the Obama administration, under the Biden administration, shut down 23 power plants in Ohio, which is half the electricity we use every day,” Husted said at the Cleveland-Cliffs Steel Plant in Middletown, Ohio. “Radical climate policy has made that happen.”
Husted and Vance were joined by other Republican candidates, including Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, who is in a close race against Democrat Amy Acton.
According to recent polls, Husted is narrowly trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in his bid for re-election.
Husted’s seat is seen as crucial if Republicans want to maintain their Senate majority in the next Congress. Republicans are widely supported to retain the Senate, but President Trump’s declining approval ratings, rising inflation, the ongoing war with Iran and growing concerns about data centers are causing concern within the party.
In a Tuesday memo obtained by CNBC and first reported by Axios, the NRSC wrote that “unless voter perceptions of data centers are corrected soon, opposition to data centers will spread far beyond Ohio.”
Meanwhile, Husted touted the Trump administration’s investments in Ohio manufacturing, including $500 million in Department of Energy grants to Cleveland-Cliffs. The grant was originally awarded by the Biden administration to finance a hydrogen-fueled reactor at the Middletown facility, but will now be used for other upgrades, including a blast furnace and artificial intelligence technology.
Cleveland-Cliffs said in a statement that the total investment in the facility will be $1 billion, matched by DOE funding. The company announced that the project will employ more than 1,500 workers during construction.
“We can bring manufacturing back to this great country in places like Middletown and across our great state,” Husted said. “And why is it important that we do this? Investments like this, billions of dollars of investment here? Because it’s job security, it’s economic security, it’s national security.”
