SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Sipping tea from beer mugs with his colleagues, Kyle Bos listed the changes in his life.
Bos has two daughters, with a third due in January. At the grocery store, five items used to cost the same as a full basket. And on Wednesday, Bos and nearly 1,400 others were laid off at what was once the Navistar truck plant in southwest Ohio.
The layoffs — coming just three days before President Donald Trump’s rally Saturday at a nearby high school — were large enough to erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio, area. And that’s one reason Bos, 30, plans to spend the final weeks before the November election collecting Democratic votes.
When asked how many times he voted for Trump, Bos held up three tattooed fingers. But he said he was done with the president.
“Something has to change politically in this country,” said Bos, a member of the United Auto Workers who identifies as a centrist. “It seems like the situation is getting worse and worse.”
This year’s elections are a test for the working-class coalition that carried Trump to the White House and gave Republicans majorities in the House and Senate. The outcome will be decided in places like Dayton, which once spawned factories because it led America in patents per capita. The Wright brothers’ airplane, the cash register, the step ladder and the electric car starter were all invented in this city of 137,000 people.
Trump’s direct delivery and status as a famous businessman initially helped him around Dayton, where voters felt like politics as usual had failed them. Republicans have scored victories in the largest metro area, but this year the party is vulnerable with voters unhappy with inflation, the war in Iran and a president who appears unsympathetic to their struggles.
A race in Ohio could help determine control of the Senate. Republican Sen. Jon Husted faces a challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is trying to exploit that disenchantment as he attempts a comeback two years after losing his seat.
Trump’s visit to the Dayton area is part of what he says will be a 32-day marathon of rallies to try to convince the public that the economy is better than they think.
“All over the country they’re building factories, factories — manufacturing is coming back,” Trump said Thursday at a Texas truck plant. “The only thing we do poorly at is public relations.”
Americans are increasingly blaming Trump for the high cost of living, with only 17% approving of his handling of the problem. Trump largely mocked concerns about affordability, but he promised to give people $5,000 checks if Republicans won the House and Senate next month — something Bos found offensive.
“It feels like a bribe, like a slap in the face, and like we’re all ignorant,” Bos said.
The Dayton region has shed about half of its 90,000 factory jobs since 1990, according to federal data, after the North American Free Trade Agreement moved many jobs to Mexico, where auto parts could be made more cheaply. This trend accelerated after China joined the World Trade Organization.
As regular wages disappeared, drug addiction and crime increased. Things seemed to hit rock bottom after the 2008 financial crisis, prompting Phil Plummer – who was then Montgomery County sheriff – to enter politics.
“My prison was 40% drug addicts, 50% mentally ill patients and 10% felons,” said Plummer, who has been a Republican state representative since 2019. “We turned it on its head — that’s what got me to the State House.”
Plummer, the Montgomery County Republican chairman, is now on the ballot for the Ohio State Senate and stressed that Trump is what holds together the GOP’s coalition of businesses and working-class families.
In recent years, the local economy has improved with the expansion of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which now directly employs 38,000 people. The base’s innovations have attracted new aerospace companies to the region, including Joby Aviation, Sierra Nevada Corporation and Electra.
The White House pointed to the $850 million investment by aircraft maker Electra — as well as announcements in Ohio by Honda, Stellantis and others — as evidence that Trump’s policies were creating jobs.
Dayton bounced back because Republicans and Democrats saw the value in Wright-Patterson over the past two decades, said Jeff Hoagland, CEO of the Dayton Development Coalition.
“In economic development, it takes time, and you have to give it some time to prepare, and once it does, you’ll get something special,” Hoagland said.
Downtown Dayton has added lofts for housing, and the historic Dayton Arcade complex, with its glass dome and mosaic floors, has been renovated into shops, an art gallery and restaurants.
On Monday, the gallery resonated with the sound of an acoustic guitar and flute during a fundraiser for Rose Lounsbury, a former schoolteacher who is, for the second time, running as a Democrat for state representative.
Guests beamed with optimism that Democrats could win a U.S. Senate seat, a governorship and enough seats in the Ohio House of Representatives to end the Republican supermajority.
“There’s a gap between what people want and what they think is available,” Lounsbury said. “People don’t want to live a subsistence life. They want to live the middle-class dream and they feel like it’s not possible like it used to be.”
Lounsbury’s Republican opponent, state Rep. Andrea White, was in the state capital of Columbus last week, where she helped pass a temporary suspension of the 38.5-cent-a-gallon state gas tax to provide some relief at the pump.
White said the Republican-led state government has helped cushion the blow of inflation by flattening the state income tax and limiting property tax increases.
“The concept is to put money back in the hands of those who pay taxes – so they have more of their own money,” White said.
The White House said Trump’s tax cuts and trade deals helped Ohio. But experiences at what was once the Navistar factory show that policies meant to help the working class were not enough.
Its high tariffs failed to stimulate demand, and the factory’s previous owner, International Motors, opted to get rid of the facility. And Trump’s major legislative achievement – the One Big Beautiful Bill – contributed little to citizens’ take-home pay, even though he temporarily eliminated taxes on tips and overtime.
“We didn’t have a lot of overtime because of the economy,” said Marianne Donnelly, who drove a forklift at the plant. “There just weren’t any, very few to get. »
Meanwhile, costs have continued to rise. Donnelly said she buys beef, pork and chicken at a discount and stores them in her freezer. She canceled her subscriptions to The Columbus Dispatch and The Washington Post newspapers, as well as some streaming services.
Laid-off workers like Donnelly say they expect to be rehired in six to 12 months by Roshel, a Canadian armored vehicle manufacturer that is buying the factory. Roshel said in a statement that it is “working with everyone involved to not only protect the current workforce, but to more than double it over the coming years through a phased process.”
The Monday before the layoffs, Morgan Hughes and JoJo Burkhard were knocking on doors in Kettering, a Dayton suburb named for the inventor of the electric car jump starter. They were trying to convince union workers and retirees to vote for Democrats.
Working at Navistar had helped Hughes, 35, buy a house at age 21 and work alongside his father.
When his hours were first cut, Hughes moonlighted for DoorDash and obtained a real estate license. On her wrist, she has a tattoo of a cross and the words “Be Still And Know”, a reference to Psalm 46:10, which explains how faith in God can overcome fear.
Hughes said what union workers and retirees want is to be heard after feeling ignored by politicians. Burkhard said inflation and the economy made it easier to sway voters to their side.
“It’s not a difficult speech at all,” she said. “And even if they don’t want to stay Democratic long term, they will at least give the candidates a chance in this election, which could be a turning point for us.”
After a morning spent chatting with voters, the two men sat down at a Chinese restaurant to enjoy some potstickers, and the weight of the week hit them.
Burkhard opened a fortune cookie and tears began to flow. The layoffs meant no work for her, her boyfriend and her mother — and the words in the fine print seemed almost prophetic. She said she needed the hope they conveyed.
Her fortune read: “You will find your inner strength to overcome challenges. »
Gn bussni
