On the road in Ohio: Why Trump is on the defensive in this crucial state

“One thing I can assure you,” Bruce says. “If the Republicans don’t win, there won’t be rioting in the street like if the Democrats don’t win. There won’t be burning down cities, breaking glass. You lick your wounds and you do better the next time. You don’t go and create a fight.”

Trump’s supporters did, however, storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 after the president lost the 2020 election and encouraged his followers to “fight like hell”.

Auglaize County, like its neighbours, is heavily Republican – Trump won more than 80 per cent of the vote in 2024. For those who are battling higher prices or any other malady, the inclination is to blame the other side (Biden).

Sean Dodds arrives to vote in a golf buggy. “It’s a lot cheaper on the gas,” the 52-year-old professional driver says. But asked if he is affected by the war in Iran, Dodds says: “Not that I know of, no.” He knows people are complaining about price rises, but “to me, that stuff all happened three or four years ago, and now we’re just coming back to the ramifications of it, I guess”.

It’s a similar message down the road at the Pratt Paper Mill, owned by Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt. The Wapakoneta factory was opened by Trump and then-Australian prime minister Scott Morrison in 2019. A plaque with their names on it sits just outside the front office.

Ted Zwiebel, 31, has worked at the plant for three years and calls himself a conservative independent who will vote Republican. He voted for Trump, and his admiration for the president is undimmed.

“He doesn’t do everything I like, but he gets the majority of it right,” Zwiebel says. “I think he’s doing exactly what he said he was gonna do. Nothing is going to be easy when you’ve got to start from the bottom.”

Still, there are diehard MAGA supporters in Zwiebel’s family who are starting to have doubts about Trump and whether he is acting on his promises.

“It’s mainly financial,” he says. “It has to do with the groceries, the gases … I get 11 miles for the gallon in my truck. It costs me $US120 a week to get to work here, and I only live 11 miles away. So I know why they’re upset. But at the same time, we all knew what he was going to do when we voted him in.”

But didn’t he say no more foreign wars? “He did. He did say no more foreign wars, and that’s what gets a lot of people, is when we’re over in Iran. But that’s something that probably I don’t understand; he [Trump] probably don’t even really understand. I don’t think a lot of people really understand what’s going on in Iran.”

Zwiebel estimates just one in 10 people in this area are Democrats. One of them is Christopher Gibbs, a 68-year-old cattle, corn and soybean farmer on 560 acres. He used to be the local Republican Party chairman, but quit in protest of Trump in 2019 and now chairs the Shelby County Democrats.

When this masthead meets him at his farm in Maplewood, he is in the shed with a massive John Deere combine harvester. It costs $US1000 to fill up with diesel, he says – nearly double – and he has to refuel every two or three days.

Gibbs says ranchers and rural communities are tiring of the Trump administration. Tariffs, the see-sawing trade wars with China and Canada and soaring energy costs have all contributed.

“He promised the golden age of agriculture – we’re still in a cashflow and working capital crisis. We’re in our third year of that, losing money,” Gibbs says.

“As a Democrat in a ruby red area like this, you never want to expect folks to say they were wrong. That’s not the way to grow a bigger tent.

“But these folks understand now that they were lied to, and they’re starting to clear their throat. They’re starting to say: ‘Hey, this isn’t quite what we signed up for’.”

In Columbus, the state capital that is also home to Ohio State University, political strategist Greg Lawson is expecting a nail-biting finish on election night. It will be a test of how much goodwill Trump and the GOP have built up in this increasingly conservative state, and whether voters are ready to try out the Democrats again. A similar test awaits in key states across the country.

“If there is the proverbial blue wave, I would say that there are higher sandbags in Ohio than there would be in a lot of other states,” Lawson says. “There’s nothing you can do if it’s a complete and utter tsunami … [but] I think these are all going to be fairly close races at the end of the day. Has Ohio built up enough of those sandbags? That’s the big question.”

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