Biden heads to Ohio – a state that embodies the challenges facing his party
President Biden is heading to Ohio this afternoon, making his sixth trip to the state since taking office. No other state that’s not on the East Coast has received as many presidential visits.
The event is vintage Biden: He’ll appear with union workers at a Cleveland high school, where he’ll announce a milestone in his administration’s efforts to shore up struggling multiemployer pension plans and keep retirees from seeing their benefits cut. He’s expected to contrast his efforts with the legislative agenda advanced by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
But Biden’s decision to travel to Ohio casts a spotlight on a state that has become increasingly unfriendly toward the party in recent elections and that embodies many of Democrats’ challenges heading in the midterms.
Intel has put its plans to build a $20 billion semiconductor factory in Ohio on hold while Congress feuds over legislation meant to spur domestic manufacturing — a blow for Biden, who called the field where the factory would be erected “the ground on which America’s future will be built” in his State of the Union.
The killing of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, by police in Akron, Ohio, last week touched off days of protests and calls for Biden to do more to fulfill his promises to reform police departments.
Ohioans are pessimistic about the economy amid rising inflation even as its unemployment rate has steadily dropped.
And the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last month let a six-week abortion ban to take effect in Ohio — one of the most restrictive measures of any swing state. Democrats have denounced the ban and have argued the backlash against it will help them overcome Biden’s unenviable November’s elections despite Biden’s unenviable approval rating.
“I think it makes every race in Ohio more competitive,” said Justin Barasky, a longtime Ohio Democratic operative in Ohio who was campaign manager for Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) when he won reelection in 2018.
Dems bank on abortion anger
Democrats need all the help they can get in a state that Donald Trump carried twice, winning by roughly the same margin in 2020 than he did in 2016 even as Biden prevailed in three other Rust Belt states Trump carried.
Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan is mounting an underdog campaign against Republican J.D. Vance for the open Senate seat that Sen. Rob Portman (R) is vacating. And Nan Whaley, Dayton’s Democratic mayor, is betting that anger with Ohio’s new abortion restrictions will help her defeat Mike DeWine, the state’s popular Republican governor.
In an interview, Whaley said she’s been surprised by the intensity of voters’ response.
“I was in Youngstown this past week with building trades members, so you can expect — they were all male,” she said. “And I’m talking about my position on collective bargaining and the prevailing wage — and they brought up abortion. I mean, I was surprised.”
Whaley has said she’ll lead an effort amend Ohio’s constitution to protect abortion rights if she wins. But she’s facing an uphill battle. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll conducted in May before the court struck down Roe found DeWine leading Whaley, 46 percent to 30 percent. Just 37 percent of likely Ohio voters approved of Biden’s job performance; 57 percent disapproved.
But a slim majority of likely voters also said the Ohio…
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