12 Things to Know About Ohio Before 12 Candidates Debate There – The New York Times

The closing of a General Motors plant had major repercussions

The idling of a G.M. factory near Youngstown, Ohio, this year cost thousands of jobs, years after Mr. Trump visited, promising that the jobs were “all coming back.” But the closure may not sour all the rank-and-file union autoworkers who voted for him. Some white working-class voters are determined “to go down with the ship with him,” a union official told The Times recently.

Democrats are losing blue-collar voters

Although black voter turnout in Ohio declined by 7.5 points from 2012 to 2016, according to one analysis of voting data, that does not come close to accounting for Mrs. Clinton’s loss there. Instead, Mr. Trump won white voters in Ohio by a much larger margin than the 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney.

The political bottom line: Democrats in Ohio, as elsewhere, are winning over suburbanites while losing white blue-collar voters in places like northeast Ohio. Many strategists consider it a long-term trade-off that will outlast the Trump era.

The site of the debate is turning blue

Westerville, with above average family income, education levels and home prices, is the home of former Gov. John Kasich, a Republican who ran in the 2016 presidential primary, but the community is trending blue. It voted for Mr. Romney in 2012 but Mrs. Clinton in 2016. There was a 29-point swing toward the Democrats between 2016 and 2018 in Senate and House races, according to an analysis by Cleveland.com.

Columbus is on the rise

Columbus, with an economy anchored by banking, insurance and higher education, fits the profile of a Sun Belt city plopped down in the Midwest: It is one of the 15 fastest growing metropolises in the country, and the only one on the list in the Midwest.

And one more thing…

Columbus is home to The Ohio State University. Do not omit the article. And on Big Ten football game days, Michigan is pronounced “the state up north.”