Trump’s promise to make US a winner resonating in Valley

“We’re going to win. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go, ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say, ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to win anymore. It’s too much. It’s not fair to everybody else.’ And I’m going to say, ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning. We’re going to make America great again.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s statement to a crowd in Billings, Mont., on May 26 is an excellent example as to why he easily won the Mahoning Valley and in other Appalachian counties in Ohio during the March 15 Republican primary, and why he should do well in the area during the Nov. 8 general election.

It’s been so long since we’ve won in the Valley that when a billionaire businessman says if you elect him president the nation will be incredibly successful, people here are willing to give him a chance.

We’re so used to losing that we’ll take even one win. And I can assure you that no one from the Valley would tell Trump, if he’s elected president and we do win as often as he says, that we don’t want to win anymore.

The area’s economy crumbled when the steel mills closed in the late 1970s and it’s never recovered.

Since the end of steel’s glory days here, we’ve had numerous proposals that promised to revive the area.

The list is familiar: dirigible factories, a high-speed communications SONET network, a plan to build “the first new American passenger plane” since the 1940s, the Avanti Motor Co. production plant, and a Defense Finance and Accounting Services [DFAS] center.

They promised that thousands of jobs would return the Youngstown area to our former economic greatness.

Except the Avanti plant, which made only 405 cars during the four years it existed in Youngstown, none of the proposals ever happened.

When Democrat Bill Clinton ran for election in 1992, he promised his support for the Valley’s DFAS bid, which was solid. But after his election, the community competition part of locating the centers was removed by his administration. The Valley location would have employed 7,000, but then-U.S. Sen. John Glenn, lobbying for existing DFAS facilities in Columbus and Cleveland, helped kill that proposal.

Instead of DFAS, Clinton gave us NAFTA.

While steel died about 15 years after the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted, with Clinton as president, the deal is widely considered by those in the Valley – and elsewhere – as a key reason for the decline of manufacturing.

Then there was the shale boom.

Vallourec Star invested $1.1 billion in a new plant next to an existing one in Youngstown. This was finally going to be our moment. The facility was actually built, but the boom hasn’t materialized and Vallourec has laid off workers.

While those at the Democratic National Convention told us that America is already great, plenty of people from this area would beg to differ.

So when the votes are counted for this presidential election, don’t be surprised if Trump does well here.

Mahoning and Trumbull counties are longtime Democratic strongholds, so it’s doubtful Trump will beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the two counties. But he doesn’t have to. If he can keep Clinton around 55 percent of the vote in Mahoning and Trumbull, he’ll win Ohio, a key battleground state.

In the past 60 years, Republicans have won Mahoning and Trumbull only two times.

In 1956, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower won every county but Pike during his re-election against Democrat Adlai Stevenson.

In 1972, Republican President Richard Nixon won every county but Lucas and Athens, easily winning re-election against Democrat George McGovern.

The Valley and the counties along the Ohio River hold the key to Trump’s winning Ohio.

Both campaigns are well aware of this.

That’s why Trump campaigned at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna the night before the Republican primary.

That’s why Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential nominee, and her running mate, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, will be at Youngstown’s East High School on Saturday, two days after the conclusion of their party’s national convention.

It’s also why both presidential candidates, their VP running mates and plenty of their surrogates will be here.

To paraphrase Trump: We’re going to have many people campaigning here so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of them.

When it comes to the presidential election and the Electoral College, every vote matters, but some matter more than others.