Republicans Are Suddenly Fighting for Their Lives in Ohio

In Ohio, a state Donald Trump won by 11 points in 2024, two Republican statewide candidates are underperforming badly enough that Democrats have a real shot in both the Senate and governor's races. The single issue driving much of this is data centers — huge tax breaks for tech companies that voters across the political spectrum have come to hate. Andrew Tobias, state government and politics reporter at Signal Ohio, joined Sarah Longwell to explain how a policy that Republicans thought would be a win has become a liability, and why voters who backed Trump are now sounding deeply disenchanted.

The Data Center Backlash

Ohio locked in a 40-year, 50% tax break for Meta, Amazon, and Google. When the actual value of that break was disclosed, it turned out to be $1.5 billion — ten times what lawmakers had expected. That shocked the state legislature and led Governor Mike DeWine to impose a de facto moratorium on new deals. But the damage was already done for John Husted, the former Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor who was appointed to the Senate when JD Vance became Vice President. Husted was the architect of these economic development deals, and voters now associate him directly with the data center boom.