Ohio congressional district in play as Democrats fight to win back blue-collar voters

LAKE ARIEL, Pa. — As the late-March sky turned from pitch black to a dappled purple, Tony Milidantri and a group of long-retired veterans filed into the wooden booths at Lori’s Corner Kitchen to sip coffee and chat about the issues facing the country.

It's something they've done every morning for years, and these days, Milidantri, 81, and the other regulars have a lot to talk about. A former union electrician, Milidantri commuted into New York City every day for decades to bring light to the city’s skyscrapers. He took pride in the work and made enough money to build a house for him and his wife on a small lake near the nearby Poconos.

But now, Milidantri, once a union-blue Democrat, worries that rising costs are preventing others from finding the same opportunities. It’s among the reasons he plans to support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“They've changed tremendously,” Milidantri said of the Democratic Party, which he left around 2016. “They used to help people, now it doesn't seem that way.”

President Joe Biden's path to holding the White House could hinge on his ability to win back blue-collar former Democratic voters like Milidantri who live in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District. Situated in the northeastern corner of the state, the area is expected to serve as the perfect barometer to test the mood of disillusioned swing voters – particularly in post-industrial parts of the country.

Trump actually won the Pennsylvania congressional district during the 2020 election even though it also returned a longtime Democratic member to the U.S. House during the 2022 midterms. Only two other congressional districts – Ohio’s 9th District, spanning from the Indiana border to the tip of Lake Erie, and Maine’s 2nd District, which encompasses the state’s northern territory – experienced the same trend with their incumbent Democrats.

The finicky politics of all three districts also reflect their common identity as once-prosperous industrial hubs whose economies have declined as manufacturing jobs have moved abroad.

Both major party candidates have put a heavy focus on winning over similar voters in the last few weeks. Trump held a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, and Biden is expected to campaign in his hometown of Scranton on Tuesday and other parts of the state on Wednesday with events highlighting his economic, middle class and tax policies.

The contest for working-class voters

In 2016, Trump wooed working-class voters in areas like Pennsylvania’s 8th District with a message centered around economic grievances and a pledge to “make America great again.” He also tapped into their anger toward politicians, who many believed had left them in the dust-bin of a quickly globalizing society. And it worked.

Former Democratic-leaning counties overwhelmingly voted for Trump, helping the reality TV celebrity and New York businessman go on to an upset White House victory in his first political campaign. Notably, Trump's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in dark blue counties dwindled from the levels former President Barack Obama achieved when he won in 2008 and 2012.

Luzerne County, an area with a strong union presence in the southwestern tip of Pennsylvania’s 8th District, voted for Obama in 2012 by a margin of about five points. Trump won it in 2016 by almost 20. In the New Jersey border county of Monroe, Clinton won by less than one percent compared to Obama’s 14-point 2012 victory.

Thomas Shubilla, chair of the Luzerne County Democratic Party, attributed Clinton’s 2016 loss in Pennsylvania’s 8th District partially to an assumption that Democrats would automatically win union voters and partially to a lack of campaigning in the area.

Shubilla argued that it wasn’t so much that Democrats had “failed unions,” but that they had failed “to voice why Democrats are the union candidates.”

In 2020, Biden leaned into that message – targeting working-class voters by touting his own blue-collar roots and by running on a moderate message. In front of his childhood home in Scranton, Biden unveiled an economic plan designed around building up American manufacturing by using government investments to stimulate the infrastructure, energy and health care industries.

Ben Toll, a professor at Wilkes University, argues that Pennsylvania’s 8th District reflected the political dynamics that engulfed suburban and blue-collar swing areas − and it could again in 2024.

Biden didn’t win the district, where he lived for the first 10 years of his life. But he built on Clinton’s lead in Democratic strongholds, like Scranton, and shrunk Trump’s margins in the district’s more rural communities.

But where Biden merely needed to hold the margins in these areas to win states like Pennsylvania in 2020, Toll suggested that the incumbent Democratic president might have a more difficult time this year.

“The mood of the country is still not supportive of Biden's presidency,” he said. “The suburbs are going to be less likely to break as decisively for him as they did in 2020 … and that means he needs to win the places that he can win, that maybe other, more progressive Democrats can't.”

Democrats' strategies in Trump-won districts

The strategies of Democratic representatives who’ve managed to win over conservative voters in working-class areas have done so by almost exclusively campaigning on infrastructure and jobs-related bills they’ve passed.

The three Trump-won 2020 districts that House Democrats won re-election to during the 2022 midterms remain competitive, with the Cook Political Report labelling all three as toss-ups in 2024.

Even so, the approaches Democratic lawmakers have used to connect with voters in these districts may provide a roadmap for Biden to navigate similarly tricky areas in 2024.

Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright has served Pennsylvania’s 8th District since 2013 and has hung on despite Trump’s popularity with the area's constituency, partially because of his focus on passing district-specific funding projects.

Gerald Ephault, a 76-year-old resident of the district and self-described “conservative Democrat,” said that where Biden was doing a “good job,” Cartwright was “doing an excellent job” for the region.

“He's bringing in money, and he's supporting our Department of Defense industries. He's supporting infrastructure,” Ephault said. In particular, he noted Cartwright’s efforts to restore passenger rail service between Scranton and New York City, a measure that was passed under Biden’s 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

The railroad helped Scranton flourish in the 19th and 20th centuries as garment factories relocated to the area from New York City, while local iron and coal were transported to other parts of the east coast.But Scranton hasn't been connected via passenger service since 1970. Amtrak estimated the new corridor will have an $84 million yearly economic impact on the region when it is up and running.

Biden has sought to connect his broader policy initiatives to local projects like the railroad. When he visited Scranton in 2021 to drum up support for his infrastructure proposal, he emphasized its impact on Pennsylvania.

The president has also appeared recently with longtime Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who has held Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, in the northwest corner of the state, since 1983. At the heart of Kaptur’s district sits the union town of Toledo − a former industrial powerhouse at the edge of Lake Erie.

As Ohio has shifted from purple to red over the last decade, Kaptur has remained a dominant force in its politics. Her district became redder during Ohio’s 2022 mapmaking process, but a Republican challenger who reportedly misrepresented his military record and Kaptur’s ability to reach independent voters helped her win reelection that year.

Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in Congress, credits her electoral victories to her efforts in building and maintaining the industries in her district.

“I could point to 1,000 things — voting for the automotive industry, not against it, voting for the steel industry, not against it,” Kaptur, 77, said. “People remember, they remember.”

She and Biden visited the picket line when United Auto Workers held a strike last year against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

UAW Local 14 President Tony Totty said some members support Trump, but he can’t see them backing Kaptur’s 2024 opponent, Republican state Rep. Derrick Merrin, who supported anti-union legislation in the statehouse.

Totty also credited Kaptur with securing federal funding for an electric vehicle center in Toledo, which will train students and current mechanics on the new technology to head off worker shortages as the auto industry evolves from producing gas to electric-powered vehicles.

“You won't agree with her 100% of the time, but she is effective,” Totty said.

Republicans say they feel good about Merrin’s chances against Kaptur this year, but acknowledge her influence in the district.

“I think the worst mistake Republicans can make is underestimating Marcy Kaptur,” said Caleb Stidham, chair of the Erie County Republican Party. “She’s a fierce competitor. She’s been around for 40 years for a reason. She knows how to campaign.”

John Weaner, an 89-year-old Republican and retired lawyer in Defiance, feels the same way. Weaner has never voted for Kaptur, but conceded that she’s a “good public servant” — albeit one he thinks has been in office too long.

“She’s tough to beat,” Weaner said. “She’s been in there a long time, and she’s done a good job.”

Why national races matter in local politics

One of the reasons these representatives have found success, Tim Hellwig, a political science professor at the University of Buffalo, argued, is their focus on district-specific issues. But in 2024, that could be a more difficult formula for Biden and Democrats to replicate.

“In off-year elections like 2022, politics is more local,” Hellwig said. “But in presidential years, especially when you do have two very, very, very different candidates … it's more stylistic.”

He argued that Democrats shouldn’t get “too excited that these districts are going to keep shifting their ways.”

While Maine is a Democratic-leaning state, it's northern, conservative-leaning 2nd District poses a particular threat to Biden in 2024. The state is one of just two in the U.S. that awards an electoral vote to the candidate who wins in each of its Congressional District. That means, that even if Biden wins the state of Maine, Trump could walk away with an electoral vote from the 2nd District. That's what happened in 2020, when Trump won the area by 7 points.

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who has served the 2nd District since 2018, also won that year.

But when it comes to navigating the more conservative voters in his area, Golden, 41, told USA TODAY that he doesn't have a strategy that can be replicated.

“It's just in my blood,” Golden, who has lived in the area for most of his life, said. “At the end of the day, it's just the majority of the voters in this district recognize me as someone who gets them,"

Golden briefly left the district in 2002, after enlisting in the Marine Corps and serving combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He later attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and went on to work for Republican Sen. Susan Collins before launching his own campaign for office.

Golden's local persona has helped him attract the support of typically Republican voters, like Jerry Bernatchez. The 61-year-old from Auburn, Maine voted for Trump in 2020 but supported Golden during the 2022 midterms because of the congressman's “down to earth” and“typical Mainer” style.

This November, Bernatchez plans to vote for Golden again. But when it comes to the presidential race, he’s not keen on either major party candidate.

“None of the above, that’s basically my take on it,” the self-described independent said about the choice between Biden and Trump. “Maybe myself. I know how to spell my name.”

If Biden and national Democrats want to win back voters similar to Bernatchez, Golden suggested they need to spend more time talking with and understanding them.

“The party is just a little out of touch with working-class communities,” Golden said. “It's a long distance from, you know, your childhood growing up to 30- or 40-plus years of public service.”

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Biden's battle for blue-collar voters: These districts may hold clues