The race in Ohio has long been a reliable guide to the US election: the state’s winner usually goes on to win the presidency. In 2016, it broke decisively for Trump, but this year there are signs that its voters are turning away from the president
For decades, the mid-western state of Ohio has been one of the classic bellwethers of US elections. Whichever candidate won there could usually expect to enter the White House. It remains true that no Republican candidate has ever taken the presidency without winning Ohio. In 2016, it more than moved towards Donald Trump – he won there by a clear 8 percentage points with promises to revitalise the state and bring back its vanishing industrial jobs.
This year, those same voters return to the polls amid rising cases of Covid-19, a flatlining economy and scant evidence of returning industry. The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland visits the city of Youngstown, where supporters of the president are still loudly confident despite the state now appearing too close to call. For John Russo, co-author of Steel Town USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown, there is evidence that working-class voters are deserting Trump amid broken promises and a growing sense of resentment and disengagement with politics.