Workin’ man blues: How the Democrats lost the white working class – By Mya Jaradat (Deseret News) / April 30, 2023
He wasn’t a Southerner. But my paternal grandfather was a yellow dog Democrat. Born and raised on a farm in Hardin County — a small, tidy corner of northwest Ohio — Grandpa Nelson spent his life in overalls, out in the fields. He served in the army during World War II (nothing too exciting — he was a cook), came home, got married, had four kids and went to the Methodist church in town every Sunday. And, as long as he was physically able to vote, he threw his lot in with the Democratic candidates.
In that respect, my grandfather was an oddity. Ohio has been called the ultimate swing state; it also has a gift for being a national bellwether — other than Joe Biden, no presidential candidate has taken the country without taking Ohio since 1960. As has gone Ohio in 11 out of the past 12 elections, so has gone the country. The state went blue when Clinton won in 1992 and 1996, but then went red for Bush in the two elections that followed. And then it went blue again for both of Obama’s terms.
But Ohio broke ranks in 2020 — when the nation handed Biden the win, the state went the other way. Hardin County exemplified the change. It went red in 2016 and then even redder in 2020; Donald Trump got 75 percent of the vote there in the last presidential election, trouncing Biden by a 52-point margin.
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