Four Mahoning Valley voters are grappling with Ohio's data center boom, property tax relief, the high cost of living and concerns about whether their vote still matters as the 2026 November midterm election approaches.
Trumbull County residents Riley DeCavitch, Paul Ringold and Julie Stout and Mahoning County resident Michael Scharfenberg recently spoke with me at Ideastream Public Media’s studios about these and other issues informing their ballot choices.
Their concerns echoed those voiced by people who spoke with me and several of my colleagues during Ideastream’s “Listen Engage Vote 2026” listening sessions at public libraries throughout Northeast Ohio this summer.
But the hopes and fears of DeCavitch, Ringold, Scharfenberg and Stout are also shaped by their personal circumstances and ideological perspectives.
DeCavitch, Ringold and Stout have talked politics with me before. We met for pizza at a restaurant in Warren in 2024 ahead of that year’s presidential election between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Economy
Then, as now, the economy was their biggest worry. In 2024, the group credited stubbornly high inflation to then-President Joe Biden’s stimulus policies to speed up the country’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
This time, the foursome was divided on whether to punish the Republican Party and President Trump for current high prices.
“The first time I was on, I talked about how I left one of the jobs that I really liked to the job I'm working now, which I don't love, but it's for higher pay and insurance,” said DeCavitch.
The 29-year-old white, transgender woman from Niles operates a CNC router for KraftMaid Cabinetry in Middlefield. She is an independent who leans Democratic. DeCavitch is in a committed relationship with another transgender woman. She voted for Harris in 2024.
“It seems that I'm back to where I was before with the amount of spending I have to do on a day-to-day, whether it's a random product, or gas, which is crazy right now,” she said.
As of Oct. 21, 2026, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in Ohio is $3.98, up from $3.02 a year ago, according to motorist group AAA. Prior to the start of Ohio’s 90-day motor fuel tax holiday on Oct. 4, the average was $4.52. Diesel prices have nearly doubled, to an average of $6.17 per gallon. The cost of gasoline has jumped because of the U.S.’s war with Iran, which has disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.
Michael Scharfenberg, 40, of New Springfield, was the newcomer to the group. He said he, too, is feeling the pinch of higher prices.
“I do not have as much, I don't want to say reckless money. I don't splurge on a weekly basis like I used to,” he said.
Scharfenberg, who's white, has a 12-year-old son with his partner of 14 years.
“So, yes, there is some more thought process in where I put my expendable money. But I also find that I'm able to generate the revenue and the income that I need,” he said.
Like his friend, Paul Ringold, Scharfenberg is a Republican and a truck driver. They agreed the high cost of diesel has eaten into their bottom lines, but said they are holding their own because of high demand for their services. They said they’re hauling more locally made steel products due to Trump’s tariffs on imported steel.
“If I need extra, I find that I have the work available,” said Scharfenberg. “I'm not accrediting that to any candidate. It's our market. The industry we work in, in this region is strong right now. It has been for a little while.”
Ringold acknowledged that while Trump’s steel tariffs may have a positive, trickle-down effect on his trucking business, they could be negatively affecting other sectors of the economy, like retail.
“I always say, when I get out of the truck, I’m a consumer, too. So, I feel that when I have to go to Walmart,” said Ringold, who’s Black and married with four children.
President Trump has repeatedly said his reciprocal tariffs would bring manufacturing jobs and factories back to the U.S. DeCavitch said that hasn’t happened in Northeast Ohio.
“There hasn't been a new steel mill that has opened up. It’s just more work for the steel mills that already exist, which I do agree is a good thing, that those steel mills are staying in business,” she said. “But it's not adding more actual industry here.”
Data centers
The steel industry emerged as a talking point in another area of concern for Ohioans in this election: data centers.
Both gubernatorial candidates, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Dr. Amy Acton, want data centers to pay for the infrastructure upgrades they require and to follow air and water quality standards. Acton would require them to use union labor and to build on brownfields. Ramaswamy wants them to provide nearby residents with free electricity.
Scharfenberg supports the construction of data centers and does not want to see too many restrictions on their growth. He said Ohio’s shuttered steel mills make the state “uniquely set up for them.”
He said concerns about their energy usage are misplaced.
“A massive data center doesn't use any more electricity than a steel mill or a machining plant, you know, a large scale one. They already consume large amounts of water,” he said.
Scharfenberg said those old mills would make good sites for hyperscale data centers.
“They bring money, they bring income, they bring taxes, they bring high paying jobs. They might not bring many, but the jobs aren't cheap. These aren't people making minimum wage,” he said.
They also are the engine behind American citizens’ and businesses’ growing use of artificial intelligence.
“It’s good use of our infrastructure if we have nothing to put in there," Scharfenberg said.
A major data center campus has been proposed for the former U.S. Steel/McDonald Steel property in the village of McDonald, in Trumbull County. The project is currently on hold after the village council voted in September to impose a one-year data center moratorium.
“I am so sad for the people who live in McDonald right now,” said Julie Stout, 51, of Niles. Stout, who's white, teaches English as a second language and is a Communist.
“I grew up in McDonald and right now people in the village of McDonald are looking at their property value of their homes that most of their wealth is invested in. And they don't have a say in whether or not this data center is going to go in,” she said.
Stout, who is divorced and has two adult children, said no one is talking about data centers’ contribution to global warming from the enormous amounts of electricity they consume.
“It's gonna be bad, bad for everyone, bad for their health, bad for the planet,” she said.
Stout, DeCavitch and Ringold favored data center restrictions, including making them pay for the water and electricity they use and the infrastructure they need to connect to the electrical grid.
Ringold likened it to the heavy vehicle fees and taxes that trucking companies pay toward the upkeep of roads and highways.
“We have to pay for public highway use, so they have to pay some share of the public grid system as well. The maintaining of it cannot fall on just the back of the taxpayers,” he said.
Ringold said the next governor should continue term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine’s suspension of a sales tax break for data center construction materials. DeWine placed a moratorium on the exemption following outcry over its cost: $1.4 billion in 2025, 11 times more than state tax officials’ original estimate of $136 million.
“But that's not a data center-only thing,” Scharfenberg argued. “We give tax breaks to any company that's willing to come into Ohio and build.”
“But it's just too many. If you've got 200 coming in at one time, yeah, you would have to stomp the brakes here,” Ringold replied.
“That is one percent of Ohio’s GDP [gross domestic product],” said Scharfenberg, as he continued to press for the tax incentive.
Ohio’s “real” GDP, adjusted for inflation, was $734.4 billion in 2025, according to USAFacts.
Neither Acton nor Ramaswamy have called for an end to the sales tax exemption for data centers. DeWine has rebuffed legislative efforts to end the exemption in the past and has described data centers as “a critical component to today’s technology-driven economy.”
Property taxes
All candidates for governor are promising property tax relief. Ramaswamy promises a broad rollback. Acton proposes more targeted relief. Libertarian candidate Don Kissick wants to repeal property taxes.
Scharfenberg said a repeal won’t work.
“You can’t pull that much money from the system at one time. It needs to be scaled back,” he said. “But I also think we should no longer have people losing their homes over their inability to pay taxes.”
He supports targeted relief for senior citizens.
DeCavitch is wary of rolling back the property tax to pre-pandemic, 2019 levels, as Ramaswamy has proposed. She said that process would likely end up helping private equity firms and out-of-state real estate investment groups that buy up distressed, single-family homes in cities like Cleveland and Warren.
“If you target it, you're going to be targeting the people who actually need it, the people in those homes, the people on fixed income, not the giant companies who are moving into places like Warren and buying out every house that pops up just so they can put a $2,000 rental price on top of it,” she said.
“I think we’re all looking for value for our tax dollars,” Scharfenberg added. “I want to see value for my money.”
He wants governments to reduce spending.
“And which services should get reduced?” I asked.
Property taxes finance public schools, police and fire departments, and community services like libraries and assistance for the elderly and those with developmental disabilities.
“I’m not qualified to decide what’s being overspent on and what’s not,” Scharfenberg said.
“The Republicans always run on the idea of we're, we're going to cut spending,” said DeCavitch. “And they cut the spending, but we still aren't getting that value back. We don't have the public transportation that so many other places have. We don't have the school systems that I feel like we should have.”
DeCavitch said the state is spending too much money on EdChoice, its near-universal private school voucher program. In the 2025 fiscal year, the state spent $1.09 billion on private school vouchers. A state appellate court, siding with more than 300 public school districts, recently ruled the EdChoice program unconstitutional.
Governor's race
As DeCavitch, Ringold, Scharfenberg and Stout wrestled with the pros and cons of property tax relief and data center development, DeCavitch wondered whether Ramaswamy, Acton or any politician would follow through on voters’ preferences.
“Vivek Ramaswamy has so much stock going into AI tech. And I can't trust that he is going to make a decision that's actually beneficial to Ohio,” she said of the biotech entrepreneur and billionaire. “How do I know that he isn't just saying, ‘Oh, Ohio is a great place for AI’ because it's true, or because he wants the money that that's going to give him later?”
Ramaswamy has significant holdings in companies connected to AI and data infrastructure, including Microsoft, Amazon, chipmaker NVIDIA and a semiconductor exchange-traded fund, according to an analysis by the progressive advocacy group Innovation Ohio. He has also championed Ohio’s tech expansion, calling the AI data center boom “great.”
Acton’s campaign said she sold her data center and AI-related stock holdings earlier this year, including stocks in Iron Mountain, which runs a data center near Dayton, and would not purchase any if elected.
DeCavitch plans to vote for Acton.
Republicans Scharfenberg and Ringold said they were giving her a close look.
They both seemed surprised by their interest in her candidacy over Ramaswamy, who, at a recent get-out-the-vote rally with President Trump, vowed to be the most conservative governor in the history of the state.
“She is Republican-light,” said Scharfenberg.
“He said, 'She’s an undercover Republican.' That’s what he said about her,” said Ringold, laughing.
Scharfenberg cited as evidence Acton’s support of qualified immunity for officers and increased local government contributions to police pension systems, positions that the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association highlighted in its endorsement of her.
Acton also said local law enforcement should cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, adding that ICE must follow the law.
“That caught me off guard from a blue candidate,” said Scharfenberg.
He also mentioned Acton’s support of Ohio’s ban on transgender girls participating in girls’ sports. She told "The Toledo Blade" she does “not support boys playing in girls’ sports.”
Equality Ohio, the LGBTQ+ civil rights group, adjusted Acton’s rating on its 2026 Candidate Scorecard from an “A” to a “B” following her remarks.
“Riley, as a transgender woman who leans Democrat, has this turned you off toward Acton?” I asked.
“It’s such a non-issue,” DeCavitch said. “It’s an issue that doesn’t affect anyone. There hasn’t been a trans athlete in Ohio, period. That’s not a thing that’s happening. To me, I just don’t care.”
DeCavitch called Acton “a very, very establishment Democrat.”
“It turns me off, but I don’t have much of a choice because I think Ramaswamy is 10 times as bad,” she said.
“For me, the issue was if she’s willing to throw trans kids under the bus to get elected, who else is she willing to throw away?” added Julie Stout. “And then she comes out and says she supports local law enforcement doing ICE detention. And I‘m like, ‘OK, so you answered my question.’ I’m not voting for her.”
“Did you get the mailer that said she was a drug and alcohol abuser?” Scharfenberg asked the group.
Everyone nodded. The attack ad has also appeared online, paid for by V-PAC, Victors not Victims, which supports Ramaswamy. Independent factcheckers like PolitiFact and local media have debunked the ad’s claims.
If it was intended to hurt Acton’s approval rating with voters, it backfired with Scharfenberg.
“I don’t think I liked her more until then,” he said. “It lets you know she’s human. She was on some form of medication and decided to drink a glass of wine. Has that not ever happened to you at least once in your life?”
Our conversation took place before the Ramaswamy campaign’s release of a controversial ad that questioned Acton’s statements about her traumatic childhood. It features Acton’s estranged mother, who lost custody of her children after their stepfather was indicted for raping Acton.
That ad may also have backfired. Republicans and Democrats alike have condemned it. But at a rally near Cincinnati last week, Vice President JD Vance told reporters he was "disgusted" by Republicans who have criticized the ad.
U.S. Senate race
Unlike the governor’s race, most of the foursome had settled on their choice for senator.
Riley DeCavitch said she’s going for Sherrod Brown because he wants to ban members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks and prohibit former members from immediately becoming lobbyists.
Brown, who served three terms in Congress before losing to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024, co-sponsored the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act in 2023. It stalled in committee and never became law, but Brown is raising the issue in his campaign.
“You won my vote just with that,” said DeCavitch.
Stout said she won’t vote for Brown because of her opposition to Israel’s destruction of Gaza in its three-year-old war against Hamas.
“A big concern for me is the money and weapons that have been given to Israel,” said Stout. “Back when he was the senator, I called and wrote letters all the time. And all I got in response was, ‘I will always support Israel.’ And so, I will never support you, Sherrod Brown.”
Stout is voting for Dan Levy, a candidate with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. He’s currently polling at 5%, but he could siphon away more progressive voters from Brown. A GOP-aligned super PAC has spent more than $1 million on Levy’s campaign, according to Politico.
Stout is not concerned about possibly playing the spoiler.
“People who are progressive need to send a very clear message to the Democratic Party that we’re not going to continue to support them if they’re not going to give results for us,” she said.
Michael Scharfenberg is voting for Jon Husted. He wants Republicans to maintain control of the Senate.
“We elected this administration. They have a deadline. They have two years left of a four-year deal to do what they said that they were going to do. So, I’m going to vote Republican,” he said.
He said he did not like President Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship – “That’s what makes us all Americans” – but otherwise, he supports what Trump has been doing in his second and final term.
“The draining of government spending, foreign aid, a lot of that, I voted for that,” Scharfenberg said, referencing the Department of Government Efficiency and its dismantling of the U.S. Agency of International Development. “I voted for illegal immigrants to be removed from this country. I voted for more law enforcement. I’m not anti-DEI. But the ICE stuff really did it. It got my heart beating a little bit. It got me out to the polls early that morning.”
Paul Ringold, who is also the pastor of Shalom Church of God in Christ in Warren, said he’s troubled by the way the Trump administration has conducted mass deportations.
“When [Trump] campaigned on getting illegals, the criminals, I thought that was great. Yes, let’s get those out. My heart was wrenched to see women and children pulled. I had a soft spot for that,” he said.
Ringold said he’s not sure yet who he will vote for in the Senate race — or the governor’s race, for that matter.
“At this point,” he said, “I am just tired and frustrated.”
Political homelessness
That statement had everyone’s heads nodding.
“Yessir,” said Scharfenberg.
“We can all say that,” added Stout.
Ringold elaborated on his frustrations.
“I want the Republicans to do this, but they’re not. I don’t agree with the Democrats, and so I’m in that middle,” he said.
On the campaign trail, Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Don Kissick says he’s running on behalf of the “politically homeless.”
“That would probably be me right now,” said Ringold.
“We’re talking in circles about the same thing,” said DeCavitch about our nearly two-hour-long conversation. “It feels like no party can give you anything that you want fully. I always go to the bus analogy. You want to get on the bus that’s getting as close as you want to get to.”
Right now, she said, that’s California. But the closest she can get is Michigan.
“I gotta pick the person from Michigan, but I don’t want to,” she said.
“Lesser of two evils,” chimed in Scharfenberg. He’s giving Republicans more time.
DeCavitch is voting for Democrats, despite some reservations.
Stout is withholding her support from Democrats she believes have failed her.
And Ringold is still deciding.
“It’s like you’re getting nowhere, with either side. They want to go here. They want to go there,” he said. “But I want to go this way.”
