Eastern Ohio may prove to be credible gauge for 2016 presidential race

Associated Press

LISBON, Ohio

Skip Hawk is Ohio’s close political divide personified. The 66-year-old retired foreman pondered his fall ballot options over a gravy-slathered breakfast at the Steel Trolley Diner recently and figured he’ll probably pick Republican Donald Trump for president but local son Ted Strickland, a Democrat, in the race for U.S. Senate.

“It’s no big deal to me,” says Hawk, a Republican. “Whoever I vote for will probably lose.”

Losing is what just about all the candidates are worried about in this most unusual and unpredictable of political years.

Appalachian Ohio, a swath of rural and industrial counties running south down the state’s eastern border, is considered a small but mighty barometer this election cycle of how voter disillusionment and anger will play out. It’s a place where party labels mean even less than usual lately.

“We had a member of our central committee pull a Republican ballot in the primary,” said Patty Colian, who vice-chairs the Columbiana County Democratic Party whose headquarters sits just blocks of the GOP’s on Lisbon’s main drag.

Colian said her Democratic colleague may have wanted to vote for — or against— Trump or to support the now-suspended presidential bid of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, also a Republican. Neighboring Mahoning County, a storied Democratic and labor stronghold, had to print 6,000 extra GOP primary ballots because of such high demand.

“You’re dealing with individual people, so there are lots of things that can be simultaneously true,” said Justin Holmes, an assistant political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa.

Holmes said the extent of the partisan crossovers would be shocking in any other year. He said Trump is energizing working-class white voters, leaving other candidates of both parties weighing how often to reset their messages in response.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com