Derek Merrin, the Republican former Ohio legislator running for the 9th Congressional District seat held by Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur, reported making at least $1,200 from investments in Nvidia, a company involved in a major data center project in the state, a financial disclosure report shows.
The disclosure comes at a time when data centers have become a political lightning rod: Polling by Gallup in May showed 7 in 10 Americans oppose data center construction in their area. Nearly half of those polled, 48%, said they were strongly opposed.
In Ohio, 75% of respondents oppose the construction of data centers in their communities, according to a September poll from Bowling Green State University. According to the poll, 70% of Ohioans say data centers are bad for the environment, and 69% say they are bad for home energy costs.
Nvidia is set to provide up to $105 billion in financing for a new large-scale artificial intelligence data center campus in Pike County, CNBC reported on Aug. 17. Reuters reported that the investment was one of the largest financial commitments ever made by the chipmaker in an infrastructure project.
Nvidia announced the same day that it will be the exclusive AI compute infrastructure provider for the project, SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus.
On Aug. 13, Merrin filed a financial disclosure report that covers income from 2025 through mid-July 2026.
Merrin reported capital gains income between $1,001 and $2,500 from “Nvida” stock options, apparently a typo. Merrin also reported capital gains between $201 and $1,000 on Nvidia Corporation common stock.
Merrin’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Merrin ran unsuccessfully for Kaptur’s seat in 2024. Kaptur has held it since 1983.
An Innovation Ohio report in March 2026 said data centers in Ohio will cost the average family $70 more per month by 2028 as a result of increased demand on the state’s electric grid. With higher demand, utilities need to build new substations, transmission lines and sometimes new power plants, which can lead to higher rates for customers, the report states.
An earlier financial disclosure report covering 2024 and the first half of 2025 shows Merrin owned between $1,001 and $15,000 of stock shares in Hive Digital Technologies, a company that builds and operates data centers. He did not report owning any of that stock on his most recent filing.
Between 2017 and 2024, Ohio provided about $2.5 billion in tax incentives to attract data center development, mostly through sales tax exemptions, property tax abatements and job creation tax credits, according to a 2025 report from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation.
As a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, Merrin voted in 2017 for the state’s 2018-19 budget, which included tax breaks for data centers, the Ohio Capital Journal reported in August.
The outlet also reported that in 2021, Merrin received $1,000 from the American Electric Power Ohio Committee for Responsible Government, a PAC associated with American Electric Power, a Columbus-based corporation that is one of the largest generators of electricity in the country. Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofit policy research organization, found that American Electric Power Service Corporation had received $6.3 million in data center tax breaks from the state as of September 2024.
