{"id":226471,"date":"2026-10-04T02:42:36","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T02:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-i-think-hes-a-disaster-ohio-voters-aggrieved-as-president-prepares-to-visit-theguardian-com\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T02:42:36","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T02:42:36","slug":"trump-i-think-hes-a-disaster-ohio-voters-aggrieved-as-president-prepares-to-visit-theguardian-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-i-think-hes-a-disaster-ohio-voters-aggrieved-as-president-prepares-to-visit-theguardian-com\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Trump? I think he\u2019s a disaster\u2019: Ohio voters aggrieved as president prepares to visit – theguardian.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

President\u2019s popularity has plummeted in solidly Republican state \u2013 will his presence at midterm rallies help or hinder?
K<\/span>elly Savage-Radich grew up in a Republican-supporting Ohio<\/a> family and voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. But today the mother of three, who lives in a Montgomery county suburb of Dayton, is facing the prospect of having to sell one of her family\u2019s vehicles due to the high cost of gas. Her grocery bill has gone up about $100 a week.
She lays the blame squarely at the Trump administration\u2019s door.
\u201cHe wants his name on everything,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but I don\u2019t give a shit whose name is on the Kennedy Center.\u201d
That wasn\u2019t the only matter on her list of grievances \u2013 Savage-Radich also brought up the killing<\/a> of Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year. She said: \u201cThe shooting of an American citizen dead in the street, and no one was held accountable? I have two daughters, and I\u2019m trying to teach them all the freedoms this country has, but it feels like our freedoms are being taken.
\u201cFor people that always claim, \u2018Don\u2019t tread on me,\u2019 they sure have no problem now.\u201d
On Saturday, Trump will visit Montgomery county, which he only barely lost in 2024<\/a>, to rally for two Republicans struggling in key Ohio election races: incumbent US senator Jon Husted, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the candidate for Ohio governor.
Ohio has been solidly Republican for more than a decade. Trump won Ohio by handy margins in the past three presidential elections, and the state has not voted for a Democratic president since Barack Obama in 2012. The Republican party holds a supermajority in the state\u2019s legislature.
But the president\u2019s popularity in the industrial midwestern state has plummeted during his second term, and his presence may be more of a hindrance than a help.
A Marist poll<\/a> of nearly 1,300 registered Ohio voters conducted late last month found that 56% of participants disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president.
In two important primaries held earlier this year, turnout for Republicans in Montgomery county was just two-thirds<\/a> of that for Democrats. In last May\u2019s Republican gubernatorial primary, turnout was down 33% or 362,000 votes compared to the previous primary, held in 2022.
In a US Senate race that could help decide which party controls the national political landscape, Husted is polling behind<\/a> his Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown. Despite Ohio electing Republican governors in six out of the past seven elections, Ramaswamy, a billionaire former Republican presidential candidate who until recently was one of Trump\u2019s most vocal supporters, is also polling behind Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate.
Other prominent Ohio Republicans have been in the headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. Representative Max Miller, who until domestic and child abuse allegations against him emerged last summer enjoyed close ties with Trump, faces stiff opposition to retain his congressional seat from a union ironworker<\/a>. (Miller has denied all of the allegations, and has not faced criminal charges. The House ethics committee is investigating<\/a> the allegations.)
Montgomery county, a mix of urban, suburban and rural communities, has been a swing county for decades: in the presidential election two years ago, Trump lost it by just 1,201 votes, one of just seven of 88 counties in Ohio to fall Democratic nominee Kamala Harris\u2019s way.
With the midterms just a month away, the county\u2019s leading Republicans admit that they\u2019re in a fight.
\u201cYou know, it\u2019s been slower [than in previous election cycles], but it\u2019s picking up. Honestly, I haven\u2019t seen much energy on either side, but we\u2019re getting more interest, people are getting engaged,\u201d said Phil Plummer, the chair of the Montgomery county Republican party and a member of the Ohio house of representatives.
\u201cObviously our candidates knocking on doors are hearing about the affordability issues. But we tell them: we didn\u2019t create that, the Democrats did, and it\u2019s hard to fix it in two years.\u201d
Plummer said that during the Biden administration too much money was printed in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal tax breaks and investment spending, which has fueled higher costs today. Democrats say Biden\u2019s spending surge was to combat the economic recession caused by the 2020 pandemic and point to Trump\u2019s war on Iran costing Americans more than $44bn<\/a>.
\u201cObviously, the war [on Iran] hasn\u2019t helped as far as oil prices, but Ohio has been deemed the number one state to do business<\/a> in the nation. We\u2019re moving the ball in Ohio; we\u2019ve lowered property tax and cut income tax,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we\u2019re doing the best we can.\u201d
Few residents care to talk politics in the neighborhoods of Dayton, Montgomery county\u2019s largest city.
\u201cTrump? I think he\u2019s a disaster,\u201d said a woman who declined to give her name as she stood outside a tattoo parlor in the Old North district, a working-class area north of downtown Dayton.
Caring for his invalid mother on the porch of his home, Bill, a former nurse and Republican voter who asked not to be fully identified in order to speak freely, disagreed, and said the wider focus on rising gas prices was misplaced.
\u201cIt\u2019s always been crazy high, and people will buy a whole lot of gas at $2.99 but act like it\u2019s out of control when it\u2019s $3,\u201d he says, adding that he has not decided whether he will vote in the midterms yet.
\u201cIt seems like everybody is making more money, even with the most menial jobs.\u201d
Independents are set to play a major role in deciding Ohio\u2019s next governor and the senate race between Husted and Brown.
Nearly 38%<\/a> of Ohio voters, or 2.9 million people, are independents, according to the Independent Voter Project.
Running as an independent candidate for US house of representatives, Sandeep Dixit has knocked on hundreds of doors and met thousands of Ohioans on the campaign trail in north-east Ohio\u2019s 13th district. He says the biggest issue voters are talking about is the hate-filled language coming from the political class.
\u201cPeople understand that if we continue with extreme positions the country\u2019s going to get torn apart,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the number one issue.\u201d
Dixit wouldn\u2019t say for which parties he voted for in the past but believes that Ohio Republicans have done well on the rule of law. However, \u201cwhen it comes to being empathetic to people and understanding what people need, there is a complete extreme ideology\u201d among Republicans, he said.
For Savage-Radich, there have never been clearer choices.
\u201cI would never vote for Ramaswamy, I don\u2019t believe anything he says \u2013 I don\u2019t believe anything any Republican says right now because every time I fact-check something, they\u2019re lying,\u201d she said.
\u201cAnd now we\u2019re like buddies with China<\/a>? It\u2019s all crazy. I thought Republicans were the party that was so against China?\u201d
She said she doesn\u2019t know a lot about Acton, the Democratic candidate. Republicans have attacked her for enacting Covid-related restrictions during the pandemic, but Savage-Radich noted she was working as the director of the Ohio department of health under a Republican governor.
\u201cShe didn\u2019t do anything that Mike DeWine didn\u2019t have her do, and that\u2019s a Republican governor,\u201d she said. \u201cTo be honest, I think I\u2019m going to vote Democrat all the way down, for everything. Because I want it not to be this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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President\u2019s popularity has plummeted in solidly Republican state \u2013 will his presence at midterm rallies help or hinder?Kelly Savage-Radich grew up in a Republican-supporting Ohio family and voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. But today the mother of three, who lives in a Montgomery county suburb of Dayton, is facing the prospect of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}