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Public story · 2026-08-23 · high
An NRSC memo says data centers have become Sherrod Brown's central attack on Sen. Jon Husted, a fight no single campaign can win alone.
Why now: The memo went out August 18, landing in the run-up to a Senate race where data centers are already a live issue.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee told AI companies to fix data centers' public image, per an August 18 memo.
Gallup found 70% of Americans oppose local AI data center construction, including 39% of Republicans who oppose it strongly. At least 75 data center projects were blocked or delayed in the first quarter of 2026 alone.
Compute siting used to be a permitting question. Now it's an electoral one too.
The memo, titled Ohio Data Center Risk, argues Sherrod Brown has turned data centers into his de facto opponent against Sen. Jon Husted. It says no single campaign can repair the reputation of an entire industry.
The memo's ask, addressed straight to AI companies, is to fix their own image because no campaign can do it for them.
The memo doesn't say what companies should actually do: local jobs commitments, energy cost guarantees, or something else entirely. Until something happens publicly, the opposition numbers have no reason to change.
Each link below shares sources, entities, or timing with this story.
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Reuters reports the mobilization on Saturday July 18, coordinated by HumansFirst, a group co-founded by a former Tea Party leader. Texas hosted 18 events, Georgia 11, California 8, with Pennsylvania, Florida and Indiana at 7 each. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found only a third o...
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