Data centers are shaping up to be a very important topic in the 2026 midterms.
Ohio has become fertile ground for data center construction. The state has some 200 data centers. At first, companies were building them near cities. The Columbus area has more than half of the state’s data centers, while metro Cleveland and Cincinnati have a couple dozen each.
But more computer companies are looking to rural areas to locate the centers.
These data centers need a lot of power to run the computers and keep them cool. Utilities struggle to keep up. They must expand the grid and bring new generation online. The question is who is going to pay for it. Residential electrical bills have already risen because of the increased demand.
These centers also need water to help keep servers cool.
At first, communities and the state fell over themselves to attract data centers. It is considered cool to have Google and Meta in a small town, and the thinking goes that data centers will bring in other companies.
Local communities offered tax breaks and the state offered incentives. The state does not charge sales tax to data center firms when they buy equipment for their facilities.
But as electric bills rise and the data centers start to encroach upon suburbs and swallow up farmland, suddenly they are not so cool. Politicians are hearing from voters and starting to ask if data centers are worth it.
This week, a group of people in far southern Ohio along the Ohio River submitted petition language and signatures in an effort to win passage of a new constitutional amendment to ban large data centers in Ohio. It is the first step in a difficult process. The group must collect more than 400,000 valid signatures in the next three and a half months to get on the November ballot.
Joining us to discuss this effort is Nikki Gerber, co-organizer of the group.
Higher Ed
No matter what you think of his positions, Vivek Ramaswamy is not afraid to take bold stances. The Republican started his campaign for governor looking to eliminate income taxes and property taxes.
He and his campaign later clarified his position, stating that he wants to lower property taxes.
This week, he was caught on video targeting Ohio colleges and universities.
"We have too many of them," Ramaswamy said, "They need to be consolidated. And when you consolidate them, they can actually be centers of excellence who are actually the best in their respective domains, instead of trying to create replicas and clones of one another throughout the state.”
After the clip went viral and criticism followed, the Ramaswamy campaign said he does not support eliminating universities. Instead, the campaign stated he wants to cut the bureaucracy that burdens them to make college more affordable.
Still, Democrats say the comment shows that Ramaswamy is out of touch with Ohioans.
According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education, the state has:
- 36 public two-year and four-year colleges and universities
- 74 independent institutions
- 49 technical centers
Families are not having as many children, so the number of students is shrinking. Additionally, more young people are avoiding college and the debt that often comes with it. Ramaswamy may be saying out loud what many in academia say privately.
Snollygoster of the week
This week, John Kasich criticized JobsOhio, the state’s publicly funded, privately run economic agency, for paying $60,000 to sponsor four episodes of a podcast hosted by a woman linked to the sudden resignation of Ohio State University President Ted Carter.
Kasich wrote on social media that he was extremely disappointed in JobsOhio for the sponsorship and worried the agency was drifting away from its mission.
It is very hard to know if JobsOhio is spending its money wisely because Gov. Kasich and the legislature set it up as a private entity. The public cannot see its spending.
Even current Attorney General Dave Yost called out Kasich, telling him to look in the mirror. Yost wrote that when he was state auditor, he wanted to audit JobsOhio but the governor successfully fought it off.
So, for now, pointing fingers at a secretive organization he set up, former Gov. John Kasich gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Mike Thompson: This podcast was recorded Thursday, March 19th at 10 52 a.m. Things may have changed by the time you hear this.
Yeah, like Congresswoman Joyce Beatty will more carefully check her email inbox for important invitations from the White House.
Let's talk politics. This is Snollygoster, WOSU Public Media's weekly look at Ohio politics and all those snollygosters, those shrewd politicians who blame their spam filter for missing an email from the President of the United States notifying them of an important meeting of the Kennedy Center Board.
That is one selective spam filter. I'm Mike Thompson. Coming up in the podcast, Vivek Ramaswamy thinks Ohio has too many universities.
But first, Data centers are shaping up to be a very important topic in the 2026 campaign. Ohio has become fertile ground for data center construction. The state has some 200 data centers. It's the fifth most in the country. At first, companies were building them near cities.
The Columbus area has more than half of the state's data centers, Metro Cleveland and Cincinnati have a couple dozen each. But more and more computer companies are looking to rural areas to locate the centers. You know, they sound so complicated, so technical. A data center, so high tech, even futuristic.
But what they are, are warehouses filled with computers that are filled with processing chips. All those servers and chips power computers for storage and processing information. You know all those vertical videos you watch? They passed through a data center.
The big new thing is artificial intelligence, and all that fake thinking needs a lot of computer processing power. And those computers don't run themselves. These data centers need a lot power to run the computers and keep them cool. Utilities struggle to keep up. They must expand the grid, bring new generation online, and the question is, who is going to pay for it?
Residential electric bills have already risen because of the increased demand. And these centers need a lot of water to keep those servers cool. So that's another issue. At first, communities in the state fell over themselves to attract data centers to their communities. It's pretty cool to have Google or Meta in your little town.
And the thinking goes is that data centers will bring in other companies. Local communities offered tax breaks. The state offered incentives. The state does not even charge sales tax to data center firms when they buy equipment for their facilities.
As electric bills rise and the data centers start to encroach upon suburbs and swallow up farmland, suddenly they are not so cool. Politicians are hearing from voters and politicians are starting to say, whoa, whoa hold on, are data centers worth it?
This week a group of people in far southern Ohio along the Ohio River submitted petition language and signatures in an effort to win passage of a new constitutional amendment. That would ban large data centers in Ohio. It's the first step in a difficult process.
The group must collect more than 400,000 valid signatures in the next three and a half months to get on November's ballot. Joining us to discuss this effort is Nikki Gerber. She's the co-organizer of the group. She is not a politician. She is the owner of Moon Doggy Leverie in Southwest Ohio, which rents out kayaks and canoes on the edge of Appalachia. Nikki, welcome to Snollygoster.
Nikki Gerber: Hello, hello, hello.
Thompson: How are things in southern Ohio?
Gerber: Well, they are beautiful in southern Ohio, besides this battle with our local officials and trying to get information about data centers.
Thompson: All right. Well, looking at the map, the most recent map that I saw of data centers in Ohio, I don't see any in your immediate vicinity. Is that map accurate? What do you have against data centers?
Gerber: Right now there isn't any data centers. In the area, there's a proposed deal that's not done yet, according to our commissioners, but if you drive up Ginger Ridge Road and Lake Skillet and US 52 in front of the site, you can see that work is clearly being done.
We've ran up on EnviroCorps up there drilling in the roads. The loggers are out clearing all the easement lines. There's a lot of stuff going on for a project that's not done. And we've asked our officials, our commissioners, if they would put a moratorium in place for the last. Three weeks and they've declined and they said it's not in their power. The actual last two weeks ago, they told me to go get the signatures that they're not going to put a moratorium in place.
Thompson: Your amendment would ban data centers that consume 25 megawatts or more of electricity. So you're looking at largest, larger data center. I guess the average, from what I saw, the average size of a data center is 40 megawatths, consumes 40 megawatt. So you look at it on the bigger side of these, right?
Gerber: We were really well, we're looking we're facing a hyperscale a big one It's supposed to be they're supposed to bring in in 1300 megawatts of power And I think that's changed according to a recent WCPO 9 article I think they're actually now projecting it to be 1300 gigawatts, but I'm not sure on that and if that is the case If you see a regular 200 megawatt facility, those are projected to run about five million gallons of water a day.
So if you're looking at 1300 gigawatts, how much water is that gonna use? And according to AI, it says there's 29 proposed projects all along the Ohio River. So what does that do really for the Ohio river?
Thompson: So your motivation is more about water than electricity consumption and farmland?
Gerber: My biggest question is, yes, what is it? What happens to our aquifer? Like a lot, all of our water is pulled from the aquifer. And the aquifers affects every private residential wells. It affects the streams and our little springs that we have down here all over our farmland.
We have lots of aquifars all over the county because of how geologically biodiverse this area is that. There is lots of ways that these companies could tap into our water. And actually last night I did, I went to our water department on Tuesday and I asked the, I wanted to ask them questions.
I've tried a couple of times and they really couldn't answer anything, but this time they did say, get me a list of questions together and send it over. So I did that last night and I'm hoping to hear a response.
Thompson: Going to the Constitution is a big deal. So this would severely restrict data center construction all around the state, not just your neck of the woods, but all around the states. Why go for that? And it sounds like you've been very active locally with your local officials. Why are you going big, statewide constitutional amendment? What's the strategy there?
Gerber: The strategy there is that the local officials won't listen and they won't do it. And we the people, there's a problem all over the state of Ohio right now. And you can see that from the Facebook groups that are out there.
And politicians all over in the state of Ohio aren't listening. And it's upsetting because a lot of the people really do have a concern. And that is democracy. So our money that we have to pay taxes on is what pays for officials, right?
Well, I feel like the only people they're looking to benefit right now is not the people of their counties or jurisdictions, it is the energy companies. I mean, everybody wants to talk about first energy, being a data, how data center boom became a gift to first energy and a nightmare for everyone else. First energy is built on bribes. And it really feels like the data centers are built on bribs too.
Thompson: How about the jobs? I mean, these data centers, when they're being built, a lot of even Democrats aren't necessarily opposed to data centers because at the very beginning anyway, let's talk about the beginning, the construction, there can be hundreds of folks who work on the construction of these data center and it can take a year or two to build them. Wouldn't the construction jobs help your region of the state?
Gerber: I'm not not. I mean, not really. They're not going to provide local construction jobs as much as I've seen. I visited the New Albany location and I mean hit constructions right on site.
The white busses are coming in, picking up them, the construction workers right from there, taking them to a different site, locate the different one of the facilities that's in the area. And it seems like hit construction. We have local people here that travel all over the country. To build data centers. So that right there tells me something.
Thompson: Couldn't they stay right in your backyard now and build the data center that's up the road from you?
Gerber: They could, I guess, for a couple of years, but then they're just going to keep traveling all over the country again, and... Yeah, that's the argument.
Thompson: Yeah, that's the argument that once they're built, they need relatively very few people to work in these data centers, you know, a couple dozen at most, even for a larger data center. So you don't think the jobs long term are worth the cost.
Gerber: Yeah, and what do we build them like? You know, at the end of the day, it's your building. I mean, I think, I don't know if our unemployment rates aren't looking too hot. There's more people being laid off all across the country.
And that I feel like is directly related to the data center and artificial intelligence boom. You know what I mean? It's replacing jobs all over the country, and if we keep building it bigger and we keep making it more powerful, what are we doing for our future generations.
Thompson: Let's get back to your campaign for a minute. You've got your 1800 signatures fairly quickly to get it before the attorney general. Now Attorney General Dave Yost has to approve the language of your petition.
If he does, then you have to get 413,000 valid signatures from all around the state from registered voters. In reality, you need probably double that to guard against invalid signatures, people who sign twice, people with bad handwriting, you can't read their names. How are you going to Let's just say 700,000 signatures in three and a half months.
Gerber: Well, right now, we already, as of Monday, we organized the Ohio Residents for Responsible Development Facebook group. And we are breaking that down into different sections, such as southern, central, and northern Ohio, so that we could tackle it as a region.
We could have people organized in each region to do things. We're starting to host some events, contacting our local travel and tourism bureaus to see what events that we have coming up in our areas until June. And attempting to set forth a
Thompson: you know what I mean? Organize an event. Do you plan to hire a firm or a firm that would have paid Signature collectors, petition, gatherers.
Gerber: Not at this time that hasn't been discussed yet. So right now we're just trying to organize it ourselves. I feel like we collected those signatures in only eight days. And most of those signatures of those 1800 came from Adams and Brown counties, which is a very low populated area.
So we are just attempting to organize all the people that we already have, see what everybody brings to the table and go from there. We don't have the monies to, you know what I mean, to really. To do it, to hire.
Thompson: Yeah, it's just it's a very tall order. I mean, we just saw with the group that was trying to overturn the ban on hemp products, they fell short and they only had to collect 200,000. They had a couple of months to do that. It's just, it is a very tall order, but you certainly have, I mean this is a big issue.
Even, are you just trying to, at the very least, trying to get lawmakers to pay attention to this issue and do something about it? Because I think, as I said at the top of the podcast, They are hearing from voters, both in cities and in rural areas, who really don't want these data centers in their backyard, whether it's in a place like yours with a lot of hiking trails and scenic areas or farm land. So at the very least, are you trying to get attention and force lawmakers to act on this?
Gerber: We are trying to force lawmakers to act on this. Yes, we don't want to take the foot. I mean, AEP came out again today and said we're going to see another 40% increase by April. I mean, who's putting the cost of all this?
It seems, who is paying for the infrastructure for the 20 inch water lines to go 20 miles? Who's paying for all the wastewater treatment plants? Who's paid for those things? Cause the way I read all these emails, it's jobs, Ohio or all Ohio future funds or somebody else besides the developer.
So it feels like the developers getting everything at no cost. We're footing all those costs in water bills, in electric bills, and we've got our way of life got to be disrupted for technology that's going to end up replacing my grandkids' jobs.
Thompson: Nikki Gerber, co-organizer of the group, looking to ban large data centers in Ohio. The effort to put this on the ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment is underway. We'll see how it turns out.
We admire your passion, regardless of how we feel about the issue. We love to see people getting involved at a local level and trying to do what they think is right and change people's minds. So Nikki, we appreciate your passion. We appreciate you joining us here on Snollygoster.
Gerber: Thank you, Mike.
Thompson: We'll be right back. Welcome back to Snollygoster. If you like what you hear, please give us a good review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you are using right now. And don't forget to tap the follow button or subscribe or whatever it is to make sure you don't miss an episode.
And thanks. You know, no matter what you think of his positions, Vivek Ramaswamy is not afraid to take bold positions, at least at first. The Republican started his campaign for Ohio Governor looking to eliminate income taxes, and property taxes.
Vivek Ramaswamy: We need to bring down property taxes in this state immediately, eventually down to zero.
Thompson: He and his campaign later clarified that position. Now he wants to lower property taxes dramatically. And this week, he was caught on video targeting Ohio's colleges and universities.
Ramaswamy: I love universities in Ohio, I want us to have the best universities, but we have too many of them. They need to be consolidated, and when you consolidate them they can actually be centers of excellence who are actually the best in their respective domains instead of trying to create replicas and clones of one another throughout the state. Just one example among
Thompson: After the clip went kind of viral and the criticism followed, Rameswamy's campaign said he does not support eliminating universities, but cutting the bureaucracy that burdens them to make college more affordable. Still, Democrats say the comment shows that Ramesuamy is, quote, "out of touch with Ohioans," which will be their theme throughout this campaign.
So we took a look at the numbers. Here they are. According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education, the state has 36 public two- and four-year colleges and universities, 74 independent institutions, and 49 technical centers. That's a fair number of colleges and universities in this state.
Families are not having as many kids, so the number of potential college students is shrinking. Add in that. More and more young people are trying to avoid college and the debt that comes along with it. Ramaswamy may be saying out loud what many in academia say privately.
We'll see how it plays though when you go to try to close your local community college or local state university that's perhaps struggling a bit. It's hard to close schools, just ask any local school board.
Time now for our Snollygoster of the Week segment, where we honor the shrewdest politician or political move of the past seven days. I know we just gave it to him when he was walking in the cold blasting ice, not the icy weather, but the immigration service.
He was blasting ice in the Trump administration. But this week, we have to give it again to John Kasich. This week, he criticized Jobs Ohio, the state's publicly funded but privately run Economic Development Agency.
He criticized the agency for paying $60,000 to sponsor four episodes of a podcast hosted by a woman linked to the sudden resignation of OSU President Ted Carter. Kasich wrote on social media that he was extremely disappointed in Jobs Ohio for the sponsorship and worried the agency was drifting away from its mission.
Well, it's very hard to know if Jobs Ohio is spending its money wisely because Governor Kasich and the legislature at the time set it up as a private entity. The public cannot see the details of its spending. Even current Attorney General Dave Yost, a fellow Republican, called out Kasich, telling him to look in the mirror.
Yost wrote on social media that when he was state auditor, he wanted to audit Jobs Ohio. But Governor Kasich successfully fought it off. So for now, pointing fingers at a secretive organization And he set up. Former Governor John Kasich gets our Snollygoster of the Week Award.
That will do it for this week's edition of Snollygoster. We are a part of the NPR network. For our digital producer, Michael DeBonis, and our audio engineer, Dalton Jones, I'm Mike Thompson for WOSU Public Media.