Ohio truck factory lays off 1,400 days before Trump midterm rally in the area
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Sipping tea from beer mugs with his co-workers, Kyle Bos listed the ways his life is changing.Bos has two daughters, with a third due in January.At the grocery store, five items cost as much as a full cart once did.
And on Wednesday, Bos and nearly 1,400 other people were laid off from their jobs at what had been the Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio.The layoffs — occurring just three days before President Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at a nearby high school — were large enough to basically erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio, area.And they are one reason why Bos, 30, plans to spend the final weeks before the November election canvassing votes for Democrats.Asked how many times he had voted for Trump, Bos held up three tattooed fingers.
But he said he’s 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.“Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.”This year’s election is a test for the working-class coalition that lifted Trump into the White House and gave majorities to Republicans in the House and Senate.
The outcome will be decided in places like Dayton, which once sprouted factories because it led America in patents per capita.The Wright brothers’ airplane, the cash register, the stepladder and the electric car starter were all invented in this city of 137,000.Trump’s blunt talk and status as a celebrity businessman initially helped him around Dayton, where voters sensed that politics as usual had failed them.
Republicans secured wins in the larger metro area, but this year, the party is vulnerable with voters who are disgruntled about inflation, the Iran war and a president who seems unsympathetic to their struggles.An Ohio race could help determine control of the Senate.Republican Sen.
Jon Husted is facing a challenge from former Democratic Sen.Sherrod Bro...