For months, Vivek Ramaswamy refused to tell Ohio voters where he stood on the most pressing issues facing the state, relying solely on attack ads to win people over.
This week, following relentless pressure from Today in Ohio, cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer to start offering a concrete platform, he did just that, focusing on the explosive growth of data centers and the devastating impact they could have on electricity costs, land use, and local communities.
It came after Libertarian Don Kissick had freely offered his platform and after Democrat Amy Acton finally stopped stonewalling and releasing her plans, too. Ramaswamy remained the sole holdout.
“It just is an appalling state of Ohio media that we are the only voice saying, ‘Hey, you’ve never held elected positions. Nobody knows what you stand for. We’re going to keep pointing out to everybody that you refuse to state it.’ That was relentless pressure and it did break them,” said host Chris Quinn on Firday’s podcast episode.
While other newsrooms stayed quiet, cleveland.com kept pushing, in stories, editorials and on the Today in Ohio podcast, where hosts on Friday analyzed Ramaswamy’s data center plan.
According to host Lisa Garvin, the Republican candidate is staking out a middle-ground position that stops short of an outright ban on new data center construction but comes with serious conditions.
“Ramaswamy says if he’s elected, he would stop new data center construction unless they agree to offer free electricity to nearby residents. He also called for them to help fund homeowner tax relief and meet new environmental standards,” Garvin said.
Ramaswamy says most Ohio counties would fall within what he’s calling a “benefit zone,” meaning residents near a data center wouldn’t pay electricity bills tied to the power those facilities consume. He’s proposing two mechanisms to make this work: crediting homes with excess power generated by data center plants, or having the data centers directly reimburse customers. He’s also calling for redirecting tax abatements — a tool all three candidates have addressed — back to homeowners through rebates.
Garvin had concerns. “It sounds reasonable, but it also sounds we’re creating an unregulated utility at the same time.”
Now that all three major gubernatorial candidates have gone on record, Ohio voters finally have something to compare. Kissick wants to halt all new data center construction until permanent legislative rules are in place, while eliminating tax incentives and opposing eminent domain. Acton would allow data centers to proceed under state-set restrictions, limit them to brownfields or former industrial sites, and — uniquely among the three — require 100% union labor and community benefit agreements for construction jobs.
Ramaswamy’s proposal avoids both extremes. As Garvin summarized, “he wants to avoid both an outright ban and a free for all.”
The bigger takeaway here isn’t just about data centers. It’s about what happens when local journalism refuses to let candidates off the hook. Chief Politics Writer Jeremy Pelzer has written a dozen stories on where candidates stand on this issues, usually with candidates refusing to say. Now that they are beginning to talk, voters can analyze the differences between them and cast votes based on platforms, not deceptive attack ads.
