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Mahoning, Trumbull counties key to Trump’s presidential bid; Clinton has history on her side
On the side
A follow-up to last week’s column that included information about U.S. Sen. Rob Portman’s campaign reserving $15 million for an ad campaign from June to Election Day. The Senate Majority PAC, a top Democratic group, is reserving $9.5 million for its own commercial blitz.
The Senate Majority PAC is waiting until September to start airing its ads that will criticize Portman, the Republican incumbent, and tout ex-Gov. Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee. The PAC has already spent $1.8 million on negative ads against Portman.
Portman’s campaign sent an email Thursday to supporters mentioning the Senate Majority PAC’s decision and asked for contributions to “take our message straight to voters.”
Also, Thursday, Strickland sent an email to supporters urging them to join him in keeping “control of our future out of the hands of super PACs.” Yes, Senate Majority is a super PAC.
Meanwhile, the Information Technology Industry Council gave one of its four legislator of the year awards to Portman for his “commitment to advancing policies that support innovation and technology.”
Despite decades of Democratic dominance, Mahoning and Trumbull counties get plenty of visits from presidential and vice presidential candidates, and their surrogates.
That’s just the nature of being in Ohio, one of the key swing states in presidential elections.
Every four years, the Democratic and Republican top-of-the-ticket candidates campaign about a half-dozen times in total in the two counties. Columbiana County, which leans Republican, typically gets one or two visits too.
And then there are the surrogates. The Mahoning Valley gets a lot of them – too many at times with some of them relatively obscure.
However, don’t be surprised if this area gets a lot more attention this year from the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, than we’ve received in the past.
The reason: Trump could win Mahoning and Trumbull counties. If he does, Trump is our next president.
The two counties haven’t voted for a Republican candidate since 1972 when it went with Richard Nixon over Democrat George McGovern in what was one of the most lopsided presidential elections in the nation’s history. McGovern only won Lucas and Athens counties that year among the state’s 88 counties.
Even in the 1984 election that saw Republican Ronald Reagan crush Democrat Walter Mondale, the latter won six counties in Ohio, including Mahoning and Trumbull. While there were – and still are – Reagan Democrats in the Valley, not enough of them voted for the incumbent Republican in that 1984 election for him to win the two counties.
So what’s different for Republicans this year?
Trump is the most unlikely of presidential candidates, and he does well in traditional Democratic areas.
I’ve written extensively about the crossover of Democrats in this area who voted Republican in the March 15 primary. That was largely for Trump. The billionaire lost the Republican primary in Ohio to John Kasich, the state’s governor, but was dominant in the Valley.
Trump got 51 percent of the vote in Trumbull and Mahoning counties. He beat Kasich by 13 percentage points in Mahoning and by 17 percentage points in Trumbull.
Trump got 47 percent of the vote in Columbiana County compared with 37 percent for Kasich.
Clinton was strong in Mahoning County with 59 percent of the vote, beating Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary by 19 percentage points. Clinton beat Sanders by 10 percentage points in Trumbull County and by 7 percentage points in Columbiana.
Clinton also did well in the Valley and won Ohio in the 2008 Democratic primary.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s Office recently provided a list with percentages of those registered as members of political parties and those unaffiliated who voted in the March primary.
At the top of the list of registered Democrats who voted in the Republican primary is Mahoning with 26.72 percent. After Jefferson County with 26.21 percent is Trumbull with 19.93 percent. Columbiana County was 14th with 8.86 percent of registered Democrats voting in the Republican primary.
Those figures have got to be unnerving to Democrats who have always counted on the Valley for its strong support of presidential candidates. Mahoning County Democratic Chairman David Betras has said those in his party who voted for Trump in the primary will back Clinton in the general election once the Republican’s record is better known.
County Republican Chairman Mark Munroe said some will return, but many will stay because they feel the Democratic Party no longer represents them.
A recent poll shows Trump slightly ahead of Clinton in Ohio.
The Clinton and Trump campaigns will blanket Ohio as presidential hopefuls do every four years.
But based on the primary election results and polls, the Valley is currently up for grabs.
While we don’t have anywhere close to the population of Columbus, Cleveland or Cincinnati, the Valley may be the most important area in Ohio during the presidential election.