Red, White and Who? The Anti-AI Voters

Ryan Knutson (0:00)

Hey guys, the midterms are here, and our special election series Red, White and Who? is back. For the next four weeks, we'll be bringing you to four places around the country, looking at four issues that are shaping four important races.

Episodes will come out every Wednesday morning up until the election. And after the results come in, we'll be there to help make sense of it. All right, our first stop is Ohio. Here we go.

Cameron McWhirter (0:32)

So, when you were a kid, this was just farmland.

Brandon Bernard (0:34)

Yeah, yeah. When I was a kid, none of this was here.

Ryan Knutson (0:38)

Brandon Bernard is giving a tour of his hometown of Petascola in central Ohio.

Brandon Bernard (0:43)

Here is Intel. This is Google Sites right here to the left.

Cameron McWhirter (0:50)

There is Amazon.

Brandon Bernard (0:51)

That's Amazon Web Service. Again, all of this was cornfields.

SPEAKER_4 (0:57)

What is this going to be now?

Brandon Bernard (0:59)

Data centers.

Ryan Knutson (1:01)

They go on for miles, enormous, mostly windowless buildings. Reporter Cameron McWhirter and producer Matt Kwong went along for the ride.

Brandon Bernard (1:11)

People in central Ohio just call it data center alley.

Ryan Knutson (1:16)

Data center alley.

SPEAKER_5 (1:18)

Oh, it is just one after the other.

Ryan Knutson (1:19)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_5 (1:20)

Yes. Wow.

Cameron McWhirter (1:21)

Look at those cranes.

SPEAKER_4 (1:23)

Yeah, look at those enormous cranes, like giant sort of monsters.

Brandon Bernard (1:27)

But wait, there's more.

Ryan Knutson (1:32)

Politically, this is deep red Ohio. Donald Trump won the county by almost 30 points in 2024

Brandon Bernard (1:40)

They're very, very, very, very Republican.

Ryan Knutson (1:45)

Brandon is 37, an executive chef at a hospital system and a long time Republican voter. He says he voted for Trump three times, mostly motivated by border security and government waste. He even flew a MAGA flag outside his house. This year, though, Brandon says he's voting for the Democrat in Ohio's Senate race. And it's all because he hates these data centers.

He's also volunteering with an anti-data center group called Conserve Ohio, gathering signatures to try and get a moratorium.

Cameron McWhirter (2:20)

If I could build a time machine and go back and I said, you're going to be voting against the Republicans.

Brandon Bernard (2:26)

I'm just saying you're full of sh**.

Cameron McWhirter (2:31)

But you wouldn't have believed that.

Brandon Bernard (2:32)

There ain't no way.

Cameron McWhirter (2:33)

You would have said, what? What's a data center?

Brandon Bernard (2:35)

What the hell is that?

Cameron McWhirter (2:38)

So this isn't a dramatic embrace of the Democratic Party. But now these data centers are making you support local Democratic candidates.

Ryan Knutson (2:50)

Yeah.

Cameron McWhirter (2:50)

And that's why you've made your decision. Yep.

Ryan Knutson (2:59)

Brandon's political shift is one that's happening around the country as data centers emerge as a major election issue this November. Here's Cam.

Cameron McWhirter (3:07)

If data centers have become a battleground issue, the epicenter is in Ohio. It is really the central place where this has become the slugfest and where politicians are scrambling to come up with answers for voters who are very angry and worried about data centers.

Ryan Knutson (3:27)

In the Ohio Senate race, Democrat Sherrod Brown has been going after Republican Jon Husted's record on data centers, and he's winning over longtime Republican voters, voters like Brandon.

Cameron McWhirter (3:40)

Republicans are very worried. Republican strategists that I've been talking to, not only in Ohio, but elsewhere, it's because of people like Brandon, because that is the backbone of Republican voters, and if you're losing them, you've got a problem.

Ryan Knutson (4:01)

From The Journal, this is Red, White and Who?, our series about the road to the midterms. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Wednesday, October 7th.

Coming up on the show, how AI data centers became one of the biggest issues in the midterm elections.

Matt Kwong (4:25)

This episode is presented by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales. Using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at accenture.com/spotify.

Ryan Knutson (5:02)

How important are AI and data centers in the selection season?

Cameron McWhirter (5:07)

If you'd asked me that question four months ago, I would have said it was kind of important. But at this point, it has become, for certainly a lot of battleground states, it has become the critical issue.