Nick Owens and Austin Baurichter couldn’t be further apart politically. But they’ve found not just common ground but a common purpose on data centers that’s changed the game in Ohio.
Owens, 42, is a lifelong Republican who voted for President Donald Trump. Baurichter, 33, describes himself as a “left-leaning independent.”
Together, the two men are the driving force behind Conserve Ohio, a political action committee that’s helped put charter amendments to ban hyperscale data centers on 10 local ballots next month. The towns are mostly small in size, are spread across the state and — like the group’s founders — are bound by little else but a distrust of data centers and Big Tech…