Dem’s data center attack in critical Senate race hits snag when money trail surfaces: ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde’

Google’s data center in Lancaster, Ohio, is at the center of former Sen.Sherrod Brown’s latest campaign ad as questions are raised about past campaign contributions from Google.(Stephen Maturen/Getty Images ;Mikala Compton/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)

“Apparently Google is terrible enough to put in a campaign attack ad, but perfectly acceptable when the political contributions are coming in,�“That is the contradiction Brown needs to answer.If Google’s Lancaster investment is so bad for Ohio, why was Google political money acceptable to Sherrod Brown?”

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Among the contributors are Google lobbyist Lisa Kountoupes, who donated $3,500 in March, and Google lobbyist Michael D.Smith, who donated a total of $10,200 to Brown since 2017, according to Federal Election Commission records.The contributions were made to Friends of Sherrod Brown, Brown’s principal campaign committee.

Kountoupes’s firm, Kountoupes Denham Carr &Reid, was hired by Google in December to lobby on “issues related to permitting reform” tied to the company’s data center needs, Politicopreviously reported.Smith’s firm, Cornerstone Government Affairs, reported lobbying for Google on “issues related to permitting reform for grid reliability and energy affordability,” according to federal lobbying filings.

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FEC records show Brown also received a combined $6,000 over the past decade from three additional Google lobbyists.

�s campaign, highlighted Brown’s opposition to Ohio’s data center expansion, saying Husted “led the charge,” but did not address Brown’s past campaign contributions.

“Husted is a ‘chief reason’ Ohio has 226 data centers and is ‘the face of data centers’ in Ohio,” Chou wrote.“Ohioans shouldn’t be forced to subsidize these costs and Ohioans – not Jon Husted and his billionaire friends – should get to decide if data centers are built in their community.”

Cooke accused Brown of acting like his “Google relationship in Washington does not count,” calling it “Jekyll-and-Hyde politics.”

Senator Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Feb.13, 2025.(Getty Images)

“For nearly five decades, Brown has sold himself as the plaid-shirt, working-class populist,” she said.“He lost in 2024, and now he is back running the same playbook: say one thing to Ohioans while his Washington record tells a very different story.”

Brown, who is seeking to return to the U.S.Senate in the high-stakesrace against Husted, was elected to the U.S.Senate in 2006 before losing his reelection bid in 2024 to Sen.Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio.

But this isn’t the first time Brown’s comeback campaign has faced questions over conflicting positions.

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The COL4 AI-ready data center is located on a seven-acre campus at the convergence point of long-haul fiber and regional carrier fiber networks on July 24, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio.(Eli Hiller/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In 2015, Brown celebrated the construction of an Amazon data center in central Ohio, saying in a press release the new facility “is great news for New Albany and central Ohio.”

Despite his public praise, Brown has become an outspoken critic ofOhio’s growing number of data centers, a defining issue in Ohio politics ahead of the midterms.President Donald Trump has pushed to expand the facilities, warning that communities that block them would “end up being backwards and poor.”

But Cooke said this about more than one local data center.

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“America is in aglobal race for AI, computing capacity and energy infrastructure,” she said.“China is not slowing down because American politicians discovered that attacking data centers makes a convenient campaign commercial.”

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�once again resorting to lies instead of facing his abysmal record head-on.“

“The House overwhelmingly passed Sen.Husted’s bipartisan legislation requiring data center companies to pay for the power they use, but Senate Democrats blocked it,” Natoce said.“Sherrod Brown and his friends would rather play politics and stick Ohio families with higher electric bills than pass a commonsense solution.It’s despicable.”