\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump delivers remarks during a meeting with cryptocurrency executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, August 19, 2026.<\/span>Jim Watson\/AFP\/Getty<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The National Republican<\/span> Senatorial Committee issued a memo Tuesday suggesting that, if incumbent Republican Ohio Sen.\u00a0Jon Husted loses his upcoming election against former Sen.\u00a0Sherrod Brown\u00a0(D-Ohio), the Republican Party\u2019s position on data centers is to blame.<\/p>\n The memo, as Axios reported<\/a>, says that \u201cthe data center brand is the anchor\u201d of Brown\u2019s campaign. \u201cHe has made them his de facto opponent<\/a>, and no one is correcting the record,\u201d the NRSC wrote, arguing that if \u201cvoters\u2019 perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio.\u201d They go on to suggest that Republican candidates support some restrictions<\/a> on data center development, such as only allowing their construction in communities that approve it by popular vote\u2014while still opposing a total pause on data center construction<\/a>, which they say would cause the US to \u201close the AI race to China.\u201d<\/p>\n While the NRSC urges caution, Donald Trump is still positioning himself as an unequivocal ally to data center developers. Speaking at a White House cryptocurrency event Wednesday, he insisted that \u201cwe\u2019re building the biggest plants anywhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state and I had a chance to get an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid are just enormous. And if you don\u2019t take it, you\u2019re going to be left behind because there are plenty of places that want it.\u201d<\/p>\n Data centers generate far fewer jobs than other industries<\/a>, such as manufacturing and warehousing; while they do generate tax revenue, they also tend to be built with generous tax abatements<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cIf I were a governor or mayor, I would want that plant in my community,\u201d Trump repeated. But, he added, \u201cmaybe [the industry] can use a little public relations help.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n