http://www.centerforpolitics.org/cr...ll-do-better-in-ohio-than-he-does-nationally/
Really good deep dive into the demographics of Ohio this year by the always-great Kyle Kondik.
I read it. Really nerdy but good stuff.
There are two counties that provide an interesting contrast in this election, though, and neither of them is a bellwether county that is, both typically vote far from the state and national average, although that may be changing in this election. These are Trumbull and Delaware counties. The former is located in the states Mahoning Valley in Northeast Ohio along the Pennsylvania border (it is part of the Youngstown media market), while the latter is just north of Franklin County (Columbus). I provided commentary on both of these counties to PBS NewsHour as part of two reports it produced in Ohio a couple of weeks ago.
In some ways, the counties are exact opposites. Mitt Romney won Delaware by 23 points in 2012, while Barack Obama won Trumbull by the exact same margin. Trumbull County has voted significantly more Democratic than the state ever since 1936, when Franklin Roosevelts New Deal majority emerged in Ohios industrial heartland. Delaware has voted significantly more Republican than the state for about as long as Trumbull its part of a large number of Ohio counties that reacted to the New Deal by becoming dramatically more Republican and it hasnt voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Woodrow Wilson in 1916 (it has the longest streak of voting Republican of any county in the state).
The counties also have very similarly-sized populations and cast roughly the same number of votes (about 100,000 apiece in 2012). They are also both not very diverse both counties are about 90% white.
But they are heading in opposite directions: Delawares population grew 75% from 2000 to 2015 making it by far the fastest-growing county in Ohio while Trumbulls shrunk by about 9.5% in the same time period, making it one of the states fastest-declining counties. Delaware also has the states highest median income and is by far the states most-educated county (a shade over half of the countys residents over the age of 25 has a bachelors degree no other Ohio county is even over 40%). Trumbull has a below-average median income and its percentage of residents with a bachelors degree is just a third of Delawares.
Oh, and then theres this: Delaware County was Donald Trumps worst county in the Republican primary, while Trumbull was Trumps second-best. Trumbull is a declining, post-industrial county, part of a region that has been struggling economically since the fall of heavy manufacturing across the Rust Belt in the late 1970s. Thats not to say that the area is devoid of employment one major employer is General Motors, which builds the Chevrolet Cruze at a massive plant alongside the Ohio Turnpike in Trumbull Countys Lordstown but the slogan Make America Great Again, and Trumps rough-around-the-edges blue collar appeal, might be a good fit for the area. Or at least a better fit than Mitt Romney, easily caricatured as an out-of-touch plutocrat. Paul Sracic, a professor at Youngstown State University, argues that Trump has the potential to do well with some typical Democratic voters in this area because his secret weapon with these voters is that they know he is not really a Republican. It may have sounded tacky, but Clintons description of Trumps economics at the first debate as trumped-up trickle down was probably a signal to some of these voters that Trump is not that different than a normal Republican. Well see if it works and if she keeps at it in the stretch run of the campaign.
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The overall point here is that its easy to imagine there being some big swings from 2012 in different parts of Ohio, but it may be that those swings largely cancel themselves out, giving Clinton a path to win the state despite Trumps seeming advantages.