At its peak, the Mahoning valley was once the beating heart of the US’s steel economy – a hardscrabble, heavily unionized Democratic bastion in north-eastern Ohio.
asserted
valley → beat → Ohio
But de-industrialization, sparked by the mass closure of steel mills in the late 1970s, transformed the region.
asserted
industrialization → spark → region
Tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs disappeared.
asserted
thousands → disappear → jobs
Populations declined.
asserted
Populations → decline → ?
And support for Democrats slowly, but surely, faded.
asserted
support → fade → Democrats
In 2020, Mahoning county voted for its first Republican presidential candidate – Donald Trump – in a generation.
asserted
county → vote → generation
This extraordinary political shift in Ohio – a one-time presidential battleground – catalyzed years of commentary and critique about how the state’s “working class” had abandoned the Democratic party.
asserted
class → catalyze → party
Then came the results on Tuesday night.
asserted
results → come → night
Ohio elected a Democratic senator, eight Democrats to the House of Representatives and the state’s first Democratic governor in 16 years.
asserted
Ohio → elect → years
But before any discussion of how Ohio’s “working class” has come home, historians and political scientists said such framing is too simple.
asserted
framing → come → discussion
The idea that Democrats “lost” a monolithic block of voters in Ohio in the first place is a “false narrative”, according to Michael Pierce, a labor historian at the University of Arkansas.
uncertain
Democrats → lose → Arkansas
“A lot of commentators confuse the white working class with the working class.”
asserted
lot → confuse → class
Republican gains in recent years came among the state’s rural white working class, through “a politics of grievance, of culture wars, of scare tactics”, Pierce said.
asserted
Pierce → come → tactics
What does “working class” even mean?
asserted
class → mean → What
Blue-collar work, lacking a college degree and union membership are “almost completely unrelated categories”, he said.
asserted
he → lack → degree
Sorting by income does not help much either, he said.
asserted
he → sort → income
“A Nepali immigrant who works at a McDonald’s in Columbus is very different from a 60-year-old person in the middle of nowhere in rural Ohio,” Kogan said.
asserted
Kogan → work → Ohio
On Tuesday, Democrats including Amy Acton, soon to be the state’s next governor, and Sherrod Brown, the populist who lost his Senate seat two years ago, and Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker who ran on a “workers first” platform, scored extraordinary victories as the party’s blue wave swept through Ohio.
asserted
wave → include → Ohio
Such results “suggest more of a latent solidarity within the Rust belt than we’ve talked about previously”, said Laura Bucci of St Joseph’s University.
asserted
Bucci → suggest → University
The economic focus of Democratic campaigns “met the moment” for blue-collar voters frustrated with sustained affordability issues, said Bucci.
asserted
Bucci → meet → issues
I vote by the issues,” Jim Conrad, a retired school teacher in Columbus, said earlier this week.
asserted
Conrad → vote → Columbus
“I’m tired of billionaires.
asserted
I → ’m → billionaires
The gap between the wealthiest and the poor in this country has gotten bigger each year.”
asserted
gap → get → country
David Stebenne, a historian at Ohio State, described not one, but two, working classes.
asserted
Stebenne → describe → classes
The “upper” one – steelworkers and autoworkers in unionized plants – could once afford houses, cars and college for their children, he suggested.
uncertain
he → afford → children
Many of these families “have sunk back downward” during de-industrialization.
asserted
Many → sink → industrialization
Below them is a “lower” working class in low-wage service jobs, Stebenne said.
asserted
Stebenne → say → jobs
Ohio’s median household income, once close to the national figure, has fallen well below it – which makes rising prices for fuel and food hit harder.
asserted
prices → fall → fuel
Before the election, Stebenne told anyone who asked that if regular gas was still above $4 on election day, the Republicans were likely going to do very poorly.
asserted
Republicans → tell → day
And this time, instead of Trump helping to turn out people who don’t typically vote, he said, Trump’s low approval rating was “an anchor” for Republicans.
asserted
rating → help → Republicans
Acton spent the final days of her campaign for Ohio governor describing herself the same way at every stop: “scrappy”, and from Youngstown.
asserted
Acton → spend → Youngstown
Youngstown, the largest city in the Mahoning valley, is shorthand in the Ohio political universe for regular working folks.
asserted
Youngstown → work → folks
Acton, who has spoken about living in a tent as an unhoused 12-year-old, used that story to signal that she was not the kind of Democrat who grew up in a comfortable upper-middle-class suburb.
asserted
who → speak → suburb
She drove herself around the state for most of the campaign while Vivek Ramaswamy, her Republican opponent, flew by private jet.
asserted
Ramaswamy → drive → jet
At rallies, she described her Youngstown upbringing as one in which political parties didn’t matter, but that union affiliation and civic group membership did, hearkening back to a time when labor was central to identity.
asserted
labor → describe → identity
In the Mahoning valley, “you can see how labor feels about politics”, added Raymond Irwin, also a historian at Ohio State.
asserted
Irwin → see → State
“Through that region you can see the whole state’s disenchantment with the collapse of industry.”
asserted
you → see → industry
The county’s support for Trump continued to grow after he visited in 2017, telling residents: “We’re going to get those jobs coming back, and we’re going to fill up those factories.”
asserted
we → continue → factories
This week, amid growing frustration over the president’s handling of the economy, Acton won the county 54% to 42%.
asserted
Acton → grow → county
Brown, meanwhile, framed his race as working Ohioans against billionaires, and focused on datacenters.
asserted
Brown → frame → datacenters
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
