In Ohio, Crypto Revenge Spending Runs Into a Data Center Backlash

In Toledo, Ohio, around 20 miles north of the 280-acre site where Meta is currently building a data center despite pushback from local residents, former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) spoke to supporters about what he called the “crypto/data center crowd” vowing to spend $30 million against his campaign to win back a Senate seat. “You know why? Because they know I’m going to take them on,” he told the crowd before launching into a story about his recent visit to the nearby data center construction site. “Once they’re built,” he said, “your electric rates are going up. Your electric rates go up and you have no say in it.”

The $30 million announcement came late last month from the crypto industry’s super PAC Fairshake, backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, and Ripple Labs. Now, the spending has reached over $55 million. It’s all part of a Machiavellian revenge plot, after Senate Democrats voted down an industry priority despite threats from crypto’s political arm.

Brown wasn’t part of that vote, thanks to his 2024 defeat, which Fairshake took credit for after dropping $40 million in that race. Still, he’s found himself a target once again.

The crypto industry hopes to prevent Brown from returning to the Senate, where he would be likely to play a significant role in overseeing digital asset regulation. His role as chair of the Senate Banking Committee and his vocal criticism of crypto originally made him a target in 2024. If they can make an example yet again out of the same candidate, the industry hopes they can hold onto some of their dwindling influence in Washington.

But this time around, crypto is dumping their money into a state where resentment of billionaires and Big Tech has reached a fever pitch, thanks to an affordability crisis and massive data center build-out. Brown’s opponent, Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), is already struggling to shake off his association with data center interests. “More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck,” warned the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a leaked August memo. In an election already inundated with spending from outside groups, the money from a powerful Silicon Valley industry like crypto may only help Brown hammer home his campaign’s message of Husted as the corporate-friendly “face of data centers.”

Nearly $14 million has been spent on ad spots with that attack on Husted, a message that is all the more salient with the crypto industry—or the “crypto/data center crowd,” as Brown would say—spending a small fortune to get Husted re-elected.

“In Washington, crypto and Big Tech and AI, those fights are abstract, but in Ohio, they really turn into these data mining centers, data centers, electric bills, local infrastructure,” professor Henrik Schatzinger, who studies campaign finance and the role of interest groups in American politics at Ripon College, told the Prospect. “For many voters, the power of Big Tech tells a story that I think runs through the country, which is that the system is rigged, the system favors those with resources, including Silicon Valley and the Big Tech interests.”

BROWN ISN’T WASTING A SECOND lingering on his old criticisms of crypto, instead using the spending to speak to the concerns of Ohio residents and tell a story of his opponent’s support from billionaire interests. “This money does tell you exactly who’s looking out for the billionaires and the corporations, giving them out-of-control tax breaks to bring their data centers to Ohio. It’s Jon Husted, that’s why they want to buy him this Senate seat,” he said in a video released shortly after Fairshake’s announcement.

The nationwide anger directed toward data centers is particularly potent in Ohio, as a recent Prospect story shows. Developers have made the state a focal point of the massive build-out thanks to its generally cheaper energy, tax incentives, and lax permitting. So far, there are about 270 total data centers in the state, both currently operational and planned. Meanwhile, residents are pushing back; the state will be home to 21 of the 41 total local data center–related measures on ballots across the country on November 3.

Recent polling from Bowling Green State University found that 75 percent of likely Ohio voters opposed data center construction in their community and 63 percent opposed construction across the state more generally.

“This is a state with massive agricultural output. This is a state with massive manufacturing output. It’s the number two auto manufacturing state in the nation. And that’s Ohio’s image of Ohio,” said professor David Niven, who teaches political science at the University of Cincinnati. “The data center explosion really set off a skepticism about an economy that left Ohioans out and exploited Ohio.”

Brown has homed in on the skepticism described by Niven, employing data centers in his message about fighting billionaires and corporate interests to make Ohio more affordable. He’s accused Husted of being beholden to data center interests, pointing to his track record of supporting tax breaks to incentivize development in Ohio as lieutenant governor and the $630,000 Husted took in from data center–linked donors over the years.

In a Hail Mary attempt from Senate Republicans to reform his image, Husted sponsored the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would do nothing more than make state utility regulators consider rules requiring companies to pay for the extra electricity use caused by their data centers. Democrats in the chamber voted it down.

LAST WEDNESDAY, ONE MONTH AFTER Fairshake announced plans to spend $30 million against Brown, the PAC injected another $9 million into the race through its affiliate Defend American Jobs. Combined with several other releases of funds, that brings the total to over $55 million. That’s $15 million more than they spent against Brown two years ago.

“If you dedicate $30 million to work on something and you realize, oh, it’s really tough sledding right now for us, maybe you think those additional $16 or perhaps even $20, or maybe even $30 million on top of that will maybe move the needle,” said Schatzinger.

Combined with the $7 million so far from a PAC run by the Winklevoss twins—whose alliance with President Trump has paid dividends for themselves and their crypto exchange Gemini—the industry is currently investing a total of over $62 million to defeat Brown. The number completely dwarfs crypto industry spending in any other race; in second place is the Alabama Senate race where Fairshake has spent $12 million so far to support Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) in a safely Republican state.

“They really, really, really would prefer that Sherrod Brown not be in the U.S. Senate,” Niven told the Prospect.

All told, the Ohio Senate race is the most expensive of the 2026 general election so far, according to data from AdImpact. Outside groups have spent more than $200 million in support of Husted, compared to just $97 million for Brown.

So far, it hasn’t moved the needle. As the onslaught began in late September, Brown was leading in seven published polls by an average of 3.4 points. Since then, seven more polls have been released: In those, Brown is up by an average of 4.3 points. And while Ohio Republicans and their allies can spend money on TV, they can’t seem to figure out how to get anyone to volunteer or show up to the polls.

As Niven points out, all that money flowing in for Husted might not be enough to combat his pro–data center image. “They haven’t put forward a coherent case for him and they’ve kind of done a throw-mud-at-the-wall effort with every potential attack they could come up with on Brown, while Brown went early at data centers,” he explained. “That’s been by far the most prominent message in the campaign.”