Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Candidate has Midwest rallies set for weekend
and Graig Graziosi
LORDSTOWN
Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is expected to campaign Sunday in Lordstown, the home of the idled General Motors plant, sources with knowledge of the potential visit told The Vindicator.
Details haven’t been finalized, but the visit could be announced as early as today.
The event could be at Lordstown High School, sources told The Vindicator.
Sanders has scheduled rallies in the Midwest Friday through Sunday. His campaign says he will be in Madison, Wis., at 5 p.m. Friday; in Warren, Mich., at 5 p.m. Saturday; and in Pittsburgh at 5 p.m. Sunday.
The Lordstown visit is expected to be Sunday afternoon before heading to Pittsburgh and will be closed to the public, sources say.
Sanders is expected to meet with members of the Lordstown Teachers Association and members from the United Auto Workers Local 1112 to discuss the fallout from the idling of the General Motors Lords-town Assembly Complex.
The final Chevrolet Cruze rolled off the GM Lords-town assembly line March 6. The plant employed about 1,600 workers.
Dave Green, United Auto Workers Local 1112 president at the plant, said he’s heard that Sanders is possibly coming to Lordstown.
“I’d love to talk to him about some of the issues facing our members, their families and the facility,” he said.
Sanders’ campaign sent an email Monday about the three confirmed visits: “The tour will emphasize that Democrats’ clearest and strongest path to victory in 2020 runs through the upper Midwest – and that Bernie Sanders is by far the best-positioned candidate to win these states and defeat Donald Trump. At rallies in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – three states that flipped and voted for Donald Trump in 2016 – Sanders will deliver a message focused on fighting against unfair trade deals that undermine workers’ wages and enrich CEOs, rebuilding and strengthening unions and guaranteeing health care as a right to all with Medicare for all.”
Sanders was last in the Mahoning Valley on Nov. 3, 2016, five days before the election, to stump for Hillary Clinton, the failed Democratic presidential nominee, at Youngstown State University’s Stambaugh Stadium.
Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas, a former U.S. representative, visited the United Auto Workers Local 1112 union hall in Lordstown on March 18 to speak with Green about the idling of the GM plant and after Trump criticized Green on Twitter.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, who announced last week that he was running for president, has Lordstown in his congressional district and has frequently visited the village to object to GM’s decision to idle the plant. Green is backing Ryan for president.