Democrats hope Sen. Sherrod Brown can win in Ohio by losing less in rural counties : NPR

The Mahoning County Republican Party tent at the Canfield Fair, Canfield, OH, August 28, 2024.

Rebecca Kiger for NPR

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Rebecca Kiger for NPR

MAHONING COUNTY, OH — It’s fair season in Ohio. And the Canfield brings in a diverse crowd. Boasting as the second largest fair in the state, Canfield attracts fairgoers with sausages, vinegar fries and even the occasional political merch.

On each side of the grounds are political tents promoting the county parties. The Democrats give out friendship bracelets and signs, excited to engage with fellow Democrats in the red state. The Republicans sell hats and T-shirts, laughing that it might be the cheapest things to buy at the fair.

Still, while both parties get attention from their own, they both see frustrations from residents passing by. The chair of the Mahoning County Democrats complains about “trolls” coming to their tent. A GOP volunteer with the Mahoning County Republicans waves at people entering the fair — but gets glares.

The interactions, positive and negative, show the remnants of what was once considered a swing county. Mahoning County voted for Democratic presidential candidates for decades — until 2020.

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election — Ohio is not one of the key swing states Democrats are aiming to win. And Republicans consider themselves a shoo-in. But the state is still one of a handful that could help determine control of the Senate. Democrat Sherrod Brown is hoping to outrun his entire party in Ohio to keep his Senate seat and he’s banking on voters from rural Eastern Ohio to help him do it.

Brown has a long history of success here and Democrats will need turnout in this region once again if he is to survive a challenge from Bernie Moreno, a Republican backed by former President Donald Trump.

This time Democrats hope Brown can win the state by losing by less in counties like Mahoning.

Chris Anderson, Chair of the Mahoning County Democratic Party, helps staff the Mahoning County Democratic Party tent at the Canfield Fair, Canfield, OH, August 28, 2024.

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“If we cut down that margin, it’s losing by less in those areas. That makes all the difference in these races,” said Chris Anderson, chair of the Mahoning County Democrats. “So it’s a lot of showing up for those voters and letting them know that we’re going to continue to show up, not show up every four years.”

Across the fairground, Tom McCabe, chairman of the Mahoning County GOP, tends to his tent. He celebrates that Republicans have won over voters in the county, swinging it away from Democrats.

“It’s exciting to be a part of this because when I was a young Republican and it was brutal in this area,” McCabe said. “It’s all red now. And it’s those rural voters.”

Brown is a unique candidate

In 2018, he won in areas of northeast Ohio counties that voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. And though he lost in the historically Republican counties along the river that year he did so by far less than Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Joe Biden also performed worse than Brown did in these areas two years later.

Now, Brown is the last state-wide elected Democrat in the state. The results of the 2024 election could cement the GOP’s hold on the state. In past elections, Brown had a unique track record of turning out support for himself from voters that other Democrats — like Barack Obama, Clinton and Biden — did not. But this time the first time he’s run in a presidential year since 2012 when he shared the ticket with Obama. And Republicans believe Trump’s enormous draw in this area could lead to the end of Brown’s success.

“We’re expecting that we’re going to win Mahoning County again for Trump,” McCabe said. “Our big job is to win it for Bernie Moreno. And it’s going to be a little bit tougher because Sherrod Brown is well known.”

Republicans like McCabe said that this race is an uphill battle even amid the red wave that has taken place since the last time Brown ran.

“[Brown] is a popular politician. He connects with the people. We believe Bernie does, too,’ McCabe said. “But we’re running against an old time name that still has a lot of union support in Mountain County.”

The illusive split ticket voter

The eastern part of Ohio along the river used to be one of the regions that kept Ohio a Democratic state. The area voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Brown received strong swaths of the vote. Then the loss of union labor and economic opportunity hollowed out democratic support, according to organizers, and they found support in Republicans and Trump.

“In the eastern part of the state, you can really see… how strong those areas were for Democrats. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that those are manufacturing communities,” said Matt Hildreth, executive director of the Ohio-based group Rural Organizing. “Still to this day, those communities are looking for a champion.”

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown speaks to workers at Half Moon Warehouse, the future site of a new electrical distribution transformer production plant, Weirton, West Virginia, August 29, 2024.

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Organized labor still holds large electoral power in the region. And Brown has a Senate record he wants to promote.

As a part of his official duties as a Senator, Brown attended a recent event at a union hall in Warren and the reopening of a manufacturing plant in West Virginia. Speaking to potential voters, and card-carrying union members, Brown boasted of “standing up to Presidents in both parties.” Brown said he pushed back against aluminum subsidies that he said create unfair trade threatening Ohio workers and boasted about the 600 new jobs the plant will provide in 2026.

The crowd was ready to vote for Brown.

“I’ve been up since yesterday. I worked midnights last night, 10:30 to 6:30 and got off, went to breakfast with a couple of my union brothers and came over here from Canton,” said Joe Plott, who works for TimkenSteel. “We’re here to support Senator Brown.”

He is prepared to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot but said it’s not unusual to hear from those around him that they may split their ticket — meaning vote for Trump, a Republican, and also Brown, a Democrat.

“There is what Brown could do for Ohio and what Trump will do for the nation and bringing back Make America Great Again. So I think that’s how they separate it,” Plott said.

Doug Zamborski, a health and safety engineer for the new plant in Weirton is one of those people. He said he is “100%” going to vote for Brown and he is also going to vote for Trump. He likes the message of not relying on manufacturing imports and tariffs for the steel industry.

“We need in-house support, Mr. Brown does that,” Zamborski said. “I believe that Trump can do that. That’s why I vote the way I vote.”

Doug Zamborski, a worker at Cleveland-Cliffs Inc in the Half Moon Warehouse, the future site of a new electrical distribution transformer production plant, Weirton, WV, August 19, 2024.

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Split ticket voters show there is still work for both parties to do in this region. It’s not just about mobilizing voters affiliated with a party. Down the Ohio River Valley, unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly outnumber those who have registered to vote with a party — a result of the state’s open primary system. The trend is also true statewide.

Republicans have increased their winning margins, and more unaffiliated voters have switched to the GOP than to the Democrats — solidifying Ohio’s broader status as a Republican state.

Sherry Cappelli, a union member at Astro Shapes, an aluminum extrusion plant, said she used to consider herself a “big Trump supporter.” She voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but she says she could be open to hearing what Vice President Kamala Harris has to say.

But Capelli is more sure when it comes to Brown.

“I just like everything that he says and does. You know, he’s a good guy,” Cappeli said.

Ohio rural voters drawing attention from both parties

According to a Brown campaign official, a coordinated campaign effort called Organizing for Ohio started earlier with the goal of knocking on doors in every county. They are working with nearly 500 volunteers to mobilize voters for Brown, which the campaign said includes a higher number of volunteers in rural areas than they had in 2018. They also hope to knock on doors in every county.

Still, organizers acknowledge this election will be tough for Brown with Trump on the ballot.

Broadly across the country, organizers said they have seen an increase in groups outside of political parties working to engage Democrats, and rural voters, generally.

The Mahoning County Democratic Party tent at the Canfield Fair, Canfield, OH, August 28, 2024.

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“If you go back to 2016, there would often just be one strong rural community organizing group in most states, and some didn’t have that,” said George Goehl, co-founder of Addition, a rural and labor-focused organizing group. “Now in so many states you point to three or four solid community organizing groups working in rural parts of their state, and I expect that number to grow.”

Some organizations branched out into voter mobilization and candidate election efforts want to do more than lose by less. One such group in Ohio is Justice For Migrant Women, which launched its civic engagement efforts in 2018.

“There’s just this desert in terms of the information we’re getting… But then that intersects with the civic desert, which means that people, campaigns, politicos, are not investing in engagement in rural America,” said Monica Ramirez, president of Justice for Migrant Women. “It’s about time the people are finally focusing on our communities because we have a lot to say and we’re contributing in big and small ways every single day.”

They have gone to county fairs for voter education, created programs to encourage women to run for office and provided ride services to polling locations.

Also hoping to revitalize political engagement is Hildreth’s group Rural Organizing. Originally founded in Ohio, the now national organization aims to engage rural progressive political action. Working with 2,500 volunteers, they have placed 18,000-yard signs and hope to disburse 20,000 more — some in support of candidates like Brown.

Marjie DeFede is the Vice President for Ohio NOW and a volunteer for Rural Organizing, Steubenville, OH, August 29, 2024.

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“You got to be the big tent. You’ve got to reach out to people if you want their votes,” said Marjie DeFede, a volunteer with Rural Organizing out of Steubenville, Ohio.

She said women, people of color and younger voters that could be ripe for the Democratic vote are ignored in the rural parts of eastern Ohio and the party needs a plan to win them back.

“They need a long range plan because they didn’t lose their influence in all these offices overnight,” DeFede said. “So it’s going to take a while to get that back.”

Republicans like McCabe see that success in rural Ohio over the last eight years as a positive factor for their odds of flipping the seat.

“When we get to the rural areas, the margins are so huge that we overtake them now. And so that’s where we’re hoping to see this November,” McCabe said, adding that it’s the rural precinct results that will come last. “So that last report at 11:00 pm, I think we’re going to catch Sherrod Brown that night.”