Ohio Voters Weigh Tariffs and AI Data Centers Before Midterms

Voters in the Mahoning Valley of Northeast Ohio are navigating competing economic priorities as the November 2026 midterm elections approach. Central to the debate are the economic effects of Donald Trump's steel tariffs and the social impact of mass deportations, alongside local concerns over the proliferation of AI data centers and property tax relief.

In the gubernatorial race, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Dr. Amy Acton offer diverging strategies for the state's growth. Ramaswamy supports the data center boom and advocates for broad property tax rollbacks. In contrast, Acton proposes targeted tax relief and seeks to impose stricter labor and infrastructure requirements on data centers, including the use of union labor and construction on brownfields.

These local tensions are mirrored in the U.S. Senate race, where candidates including Jon Husted and Sherrod Brown are competing. Brown has centered part of his campaign on banning members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks. Meanwhile, Governor Mike DeWine has already taken action on the tech sector by suspending a sales tax break for data center construction materials, contributing to a climate of uncertainty in villages like McDonald, where a proposed data center campus is under a one-year moratorium.