President Trump defended the unpopular data centers that power the artificial intelligence industry as he campaigned in Ohio on Saturday with a vulnerable Republican senator who is trying to overcome voters’ concerns about the hulking complexes.
Speaking shortly after the senator, Jon Husted, Mr. Trump decided to address the prickly topic.
“We want them,” Mr. Trump said of data centers. “Look, there’s so much money to be made for Ohio, you can’t just turn them off. They’ll go to China.”
Though A.I. has remained on the periphery of many midterm races, it has broken through as a central issue in Ohio, a pivotal region in the data center boom, as Mr. Husted runs against Sherrod Brown, a Democratic former senator.
Mr. Brown has targeted Mr. Husted, a former lieutenant governor, over Mr. Husted’s support for data center investments while he was serving in state government from 2019 to 2025.
Many voters in Ohio are concerned about the facilities’ impact on energy prices, and a New York Times/Siena poll released on Saturday found that most voters in the state are opposed their construction. By an 11-point margin, voters trusted Mr. Brown more than Mr. Husted on the issue, according to the poll. In August, a memo from Senate Republicans’ campaign arm likened the politics of data centers to an “anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”
The episode on Saturday underscored the challenge Mr. Trump poses for Republicans running in key Senate races. Though visits Mr. Trump makes to battlegrounds could activate the party’s base, large shares of voters disapprove of his handling of a range of core issues. And in meandering remarks in Vandalia, Ohio, the president wandered right into one of the most challenging topics for the candidate he was campaigning for.
After Mr. Trump’s comments on Saturday, Mr. Brown’s campaign quickly issued a statement.
“Jon Husted led the charge to bring data centers to Ohio, forcing Ohioans to pay thousands more in higher electric bills,” Lauren Chou, a spokeswoman for Mr. Brown, said in a statement that described Mr. Husted as the “face of data centers” in Ohio.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Husted, Amy Natoce, said in a statement that the senator believed data centers were “a local decision.”
Mr. Trump has dismissed growing concerns about A.I. in recent weeks, saying that the United States cannot allow China to catch up in a fast-paced tech race that he says America is winning.
But some voters are fed up with the effects of data centers on energy prices. In Ohio, 63 percent of voters oppose the construction of data centers to support A.I., the Times/Siena survey found. Just 31 percent support their construction.
Mr. Husted, who is looking to improve his standing on the issue, has sponsored a bill intended to protect consumers from high energy costs associated with data centers. But Democrats blocked the legislation in a procedural vote last week, denying Mr. Husted a victory.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, said on the Senate floor that the bill was “toothless” and would do “nothing to require data center companies to pay for their rising costs to the surrounding communities.” He called for a stronger bill targeting data centers and addressing A.I. safety concerns.
Mr. Trump raised the legislation at the rally, calling it a “very good” bill.
“Senator Husted brought that bill to the Senate floor,” said Mr. Trump, who went on to blame Democrats for blocking it. “They didn’t want it — only because we wanted it, probably because I wanted it.”
Barely a month ago, Mr. Trump lashed out at Americans critical of the data center boom, writing on social media that the “only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.”
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