What's going on in Ohio and Iowa?

[NOVA Green]

What is causing both Iowa and Ohio to swing so quickly to Trump? Iowa I can easily attribute it being a more whiter state and less educated state, but Ohio still intrigues me.

In order for Trump to be leading he has to be running up the scores in the suburbs of Cincinnati and Columbus and doing strongly in Southeast Appalachian Ohio while keeping the margins close in Cuyahoga county, which based on Trump's performance with minorities, women and urban whites, doesn't seem likely, so what is going on?



There are other parts of Ohio that you did not mention, which are likely playing a larger role.

NE OH--- (Outside of Metro Cleveland).

1.) Mahoning County (Youngstown) was a +27/28 Obama country in 08/12. It is widely expected that there will be significant swings here, although Clinton will still win comfortably.

2.) Stark County (Canton) has been trending Republican in recent cycles and will likely flip Republican this year.

3.) Summit County (Akron). Been holding relatively even over the past three election cycles, but...

Major swings in a heavily unionized region of the state towards Trump, from historically from an overwhelmingly Democratic part of the state.

NW Ohio

1.) Lucas County (Toledo). This is an area that also has historical union roots and Obama won 65% in both 08/12 a 5% improvement from Kerry's '04 numbers. Reversion to the norms.

2.) Areas around Toledo... Kerry won only Lucas county and lost the surrounding counties. Obama was able to flip these in '08/12. They are reverting back to the norms.

SW-Ohio

1.) Hamilton County (Cinci + burbs)- Flipped to Obama for the first time in decades for a Democrat.... George W. won this county by 5 points in 2004 when the state was almost a tossup. Obama slightly underperformed national margins in '08 and overperformed national margins in '12. I believe there was a county poll a few weeks back that shows it basically tied...

2.) Montgomery County (Dayton + burbs). This is a county that went Dem for the first time in forever back in '92 and has been Dem ever since. This is a county which looks like it will flip in the event of a Trump win in Ohio.

Columbus

1.) Disagree with your premise that Trump is overperforming in the Columbus 'burbs. This is one part of the state where suburban educated White voters will likely trend against Trump.

2.) Clinton's biggest issue is in Franklin County (Columbus) and her abysmal performance with Millennial voters.... likely low voters turnout and lots of 3rd party protest votes here.

Cleveland

1.) Very much doubt the Clinton is underperforming in this county. It's always been the breadbasket of Dem votes in the state, and there used to be a rule of thumb that if Dems are winning Cuyahoga by >250k or 300k votes they are winning the state.

2.) Cleveland 'burbs will likely be more like Columbus 'burbs. A few offsets between Lake County and West Cleveland or so, but whatever...

SE-OH

No question... Trump country and huge swings. I'm almost scared to look at the swings from Kerry '04 and Hillary '16, and even Obama '12 and Clinton '16.

Bottom line: Clinton has completely blown it in Ohio.... no focus on bread and butter ads on jobs, minimum wage, improvements in unemployment over the past 8 years, etc... This is not a state where there are a ton of Millennials and Bernie holdouts causing close margins, This is a state that was at the center of the labor movement, and the fact that Trump is winning the battle on economic issues is extremely concerning.

There was a union sponsored poll of Ohio Union Members that came out about three weeks ago, that showed Clinton with only +5 among union members. How does a Democratic Presidential candidate let this happen in a key swing state, which would normally be the final nail in the coffin for ANY Republican Presidential candidate in recent memory?

[NOVA Green]

Apologies... for some reason my post showed up as a quote, rather than my own statements because I wanted to delete the graph to focus on the substance.

[NOVA Green]

Re: NOVA Green, didn't Trumka claim to have some poll showing Trump lagging Romney by five points with union members? Is that the one you're referring to?

King Sweden.... I think you are correct, and I conflated another poll that appeared to indicated the contrary.

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/New-Poll-Trump-s-Support-Among-Union-Members-Is-Dropping-Fast

[NOVA Green]

The fundamental problem with Ohio, is that Clinton completely ceded the ground to Trump on economic related issues in this state, and has not appeared to make any single attempt to fight hard for Ohio.

If Clinton loses Ohio, it will come down to a dramatic collapse in the most heavily union part of the state, Northeast Ohio where workers fought and died to bring unions into the Steel Mills, Rubber factories, etc....

I lived in Ohio in college as a young man in the early '90s, and this is a part of America where the union blood runs strong, even among many Republicans....

Classic song from Bruce Springsteen tells the story of Youngstown...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GaFUOQWi9A

[NOVA Green]

Clinton is virtually screwed in Ohio."

She never once fought for, nor contested the state, outside of a few campaign appearances, and throwing a boatload of money down the crapper in an attempt to appeal to "college educated white women" in a state interested more in increasing the minimum wage, increased funding for Voc-Ed, protection labor rights, etc...

Hillary is no Bill, and baby boomer swing voters in Ohio remember the history of the State, and she is likely to get killed in NE and SE OH in a state where she should be winning,,,,

Clinton needs to actually earn the votes of the people of NE-OH that have a long collective memory of the struggles to bring the unions into the steel, rubber plants and factories in a region heavily settled by Eastern European ethnics, that helped win WWII, fought in Korea and 'Nam...

Kent State was not a typical "radical college town" back in the days. but rather was representative more of those who were able to go to college that saw relatives drafted that died in the fields of 'Nam.

Trump is actually winning a fight that Clinton should be dominating on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68g76j9VBvM

[NOVA Green]

I can't speak for Iowa, but Trump's apparent lead in OH comes down to personal appeal. I think unions are cited far too often in electoral analysis for rust belt states. Unions have been in decline for decades, even here. I know very few adults that hold membership in a union, and none that consider union membership a vital component of their identity. Union membership in OH is still less than 15% among working adults. The most common refrain I hear from reluctant Trump supporters is that Hillary is an "elitist" and does not care for or think about people like them. Trump (regardless of whether or not it's true) seems more genuine to Ohioans that have always considered themselves "ordinary Americans". I think it's more Clinton's personal weakness than Trump's appeal that's dragging her down in NE Ohio. For reference, I'm from Stark county.

Welcome to the forum Falloutboy97!!!

Several points:

1.) Although union membership in Ohio is barely higher than the national average, there are parts of the state (NE Ohio, Toledo, etc...) where the collective memory of the labor struggles in the Auto, Steel, Rubber, and Coal Mines still resonates. The Democratic Party has forgotten this since the DLC and Bill Clinton era starting back in '92.

2.) Your statement regarding Clinton being perceived as an elitist, and the personal appeal of Trump, combined with the Ohioans perspective as "ordinary Americans" totally jives with my experience "When I was a boy in Ohio" Phil Ochs, although was in college in SW-OH and not NE-OH, so more familiar with places like Cinci, Dayton, Springfield, and Columbus than the NE part of the state.

3.) What's your sense of what is going on in Stark County? I'm predicting it will flip to the Republican, for the first time in decades, and that Dem margins will collapse significantly in Mahoning and Summit. Clinton doesn't appear to have made a real fight in this part of the state on "bread and butter" issues.

[NOVA Green]

White working class voters in Ohio and Iowa are trending Trump because of jobs and free trade. Despite that, they're still voting for Republican Senator Rob Portman, who is the biggest free-trader next to Paul Ryan in the entire Congress. They are probably fed up with the identity politics of the Democrats too; or they just like Trump's message.

Clinton should still campaign in Iowa, she can do well in Dubuque, Clinton, and Des Moines suburbs.

So you saying that Iowa is a better bet for Dems than OH???

I agree that there are many more undecided voters in IA vs OH, that tend to lean more Dem than Rep, but I believe that OH is still more winnable for Clinton *if* she can consolidate Obama voters in places like NorthEast-OH (Excluding Metro Cleveland), Toledo, Dayton, and bring Millennials back to the fold in Columbus and many other college communities throughout the state.

[NOVA Green]

White working class voters in Ohio and Iowa are trending Trump because of jobs and free trade. Despite that, they're still voting for Republican Senator Rob Portman, who is the biggest free-trader next to Paul Ryan in the entire Congress. They are probably fed up with the identity politics of the Democrats too; or they just like Trump's message.

Clinton should still campaign in Iowa, she can do well in Dubuque, Clinton, and Des Moines suburbs.

So you saying that Iowa is a better bet for Dems than OH???

I agree that there are many more undecided voters in IA vs OH, that tend to lean more Dem than Rep, but I believe that OH is still more winnable for Clinton *if* she can consolidate Obama voters in places like NorthEast-OH (Excluding Metro Cleveland), Toledo, Dayton, and bring Millennials back to the fold in Columbus and many other college communities throughout the state.

It might. She has to do well in the college towns and cities in Iowa.

There are many more undecided voters in Iowa than Ohio, and many people forget that there is a huge number of college aged voters in the state in both public and private schools...

Ohio is interesting as well in this regard, in that in many former decades it was constantly #3 or #4 in terms of total college enrollment.

Still, I believe IA will flip before OH in '16 although the "Trumpist" campaign platform of foreign non-interventionism, economic protectionism, is essentially tailor made for both states....

[NOVA Green]

What is often forgotten about Ohio and Iowa is the large student population in both states.

Iowa ranks at #1 in terms of per capita college students by state.

Although this is distorted a bit because of the presence of Ashford University (Online College) , there is still a very large number of students attending both public and private schools in Iowa.

Ohio is technically just slightly below the national average in per capita college enrollment, but still one of the largest states in terms of total number of college students enrolled in private and public schools within the state.

Ohio has one of the largest public university systems in the nation, as a result of a dramatic expansion of the system in the 1960s where the sons and daughters of factory workers could get a four year degree at an affordable cost (think Kent State).

Additionally, just like Iowa there was a dramatic growth of private schools in the mid to late 1800s, when Liberal Arts schools, theories of higher education, were being developed in a part of the country that basically went from being a frontier state to a settled agricultural and small-town state, with some workshops and factories springing up as the Industrial Revolution kicked off in a big way.

Clinton's biggest dropoff from the Obama '08/'12 coalition has been with Millennial voters, especially younger Millennials (College aged voters).

It's not necessarily that Trump has been able to dramatically expand the Republican base in IA and OH, but also that Clinton has not been able to bring the Millennials onboard in two states with extremely large college student populations.