SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – Over mugs more commonly used for beer, Kyle Bos shared a list of changes reshaping his life.
Bos is the father of two daughters, with a third child expected in January. At the supermarket, five items can now cost what an entire cart once did. Then, on Wednesday, he and nearly 1,400 co-workers lost their jobs at the former Navistar truck plant in southwestern Ohio.
The layoffs came just three days before President Donald Trump’s Saturday rally at a nearby high school. Their scale was enough to wipe out roughly a year of job growth across the greater Dayton area. For Bos, 30, the cuts are also a reason he plans to spend the final weeks before the November election canvassing for Democrats.
When asked how many times he had voted for Trump, Bos raised three tattooed fingers. But he said he would not support the president again.
“Something has to change politically in this country,” said Bos, a United Auto Workers member who describes himself as a centrist. “Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.”
Trump is campaigning in the Dayton area Saturday
This election is a test of the working-class coalition that helped propel Trump to the White House and gave Republicans control of the House and Senate. Its results will be shaped in communities such as Dayton, a city of 137,000 that once led the nation in patents per capita and produced inventions including the Wright brothers’ airplane, the cash register, the stepladder and the electric car starter.
Trump’s direct style and celebrity-businessman image initially resonated around Dayton, where many voters believed traditional politics had failed. Republicans won across the larger metropolitan area, but the party now faces discontent over inflation, the Iran war and a president some voters view as detached from their economic struggles.
An Ohio Senate contest could help determine which party controls the chamber. Republican Sen. Jon Husted is being challenged by former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is seeking a comeback two years after losing his seat and is trying to capitalize on voter frustration.
Trump’s Dayton-area appearance is part of what he describes as a 32-day marathon of rallies aimed at persuading Americans that the economy is stronger than they believe.
“All over the country, they’re building factories, plants — manufacturing’s coming back,” Trump said Thursday during a visit to a truck plant in Texas. “The only thing we’re doing badly at is public relations.”
With just 17% of Americans approving of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, more voters are holding him responsible for high prices. Trump has mostly dismissed affordability concerns, while promising $5,000 checks if Republicans win the House and Senate next month. Bos said the proposal offended him.
“It feels like a bribe, a slap in the face, and, like, that we’re all ignorant,” Bos said.
When factory work moved overseas, Republicans gained ground
Since 1990, the Dayton area has lost about half of its 90,000 manufacturing jobs, federal data shows. The decline began after the North American Free Trade Agreement moved many positions to Mexico, where auto parts could be produced more cheaply, and accelerated after China entered the World Trade Organization.
As reliable factory paychecks disappeared, drug addiction and crime rose. Conditions appeared to reach their lowest point after the 2008 financial crisis, prompting Phil Plummer, then the Montgomery County sheriff, to enter politics.
“My jail was 40% drug addicts, 50% mental health patients, 10% criminals,” said Plummer, a Republican state representative since 2019. “We got it upside down — that’s what drove me to the state house.”
Plummer, now the Montgomery County Republican chairman, is running for the Ohio state Senate. He said Trump remains the force holding together the GOP coalition of businesses and working-class families.
The local economy has improved in recent years as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base expanded. The base now directly employs 38,000 people, and its innovations have helped attract aerospace companies such as Joby Aviation, the Sierra Nevada Corporation and Electra.
The White House cited aircraft maker Electra’s $850 million investment, along with job announcements from Honda, Stellantis and other companies in Ohio, as evidence that Trump’s policies were creating employment.
Dayton rebounded because Republicans and Democrats alike saw the value coming out of Wright-Patterson over the past two decades, said Jeff Hoagland, CEO of the Dayton Development Coalition.
“In economic development, it takes time, and you have got to give it a little bit of time to bake, and then once it does, then you’re going to have something special,” Hoagland said.
Even as Dayton recovers, its politicians say this election is about inflation
Downtown Dayton has added lofts for housing, and the historic Dayton Arcade complex with its glass dome and mosaic-tiled floors has been renovated into shops, an art gallery and eateries.
On Monday, the gallery echoed with the sounds of an acoustic guitar and flute during a fundraiser for Rose Lounsbury, a former schoolteacher who, for the second time, is running as a Democrat for state representative.
The guests radiated optimism that Democrats might pick up a U.S. Senate seat, a governorship and enough spots in the Ohio House of Representatives to end a Republican supermajority.
“There is a gap between what people want and what they feel is available,” Lounsbury said. “People don’t want to live a life of subsistence. They want to live the middle-class dream and they feel it’s not available like it once was.”
Lounsbury’s Republican opponent, State Rep. Andrea White, was in the state capital, Columbus, during the past week, where she helped lead a push to pass a temporary suspension of the state gas tax of 38.5 cents per gallon to offer some relief at the pump.
White said the Republican-led state government has helped to cushion the blow of inflation by flattening the state income tax and reining in property tax hikes.
“The concept is, put it back in the hands of the people who pay the taxes — so they have more of their own money,” White said.
No tax on overtime doesn’t help these factory workers
The White House said Trump’s tax cuts and trade deals have helped Ohio. But the experiences at what had been the Navistar plant show that policies that were supposed to help the working class were not enough.
His broad tariffs failed to boost demand and the plant’s former owner, International Motors, chose to offload the facility. And Trump’s major legislative achievement — the One Big Beautiful Bill — contributed little to people’s take-home pay, even as it temporarily stripped taxes from tips and overtime.
“We weren’t getting a lot of overtime because of the economy,” said Marianne Donnelly, who drove a forklift at the factory. “There just wasn’t any to be had, very little to be had.”
Meanwhile, costs have kept climbing. Donnelly said she buys marked-down beef, pork and chicken and stows them in her freezer. She canceled her subscriptions to The Columbus Dispatch and The Washington Post newspapers, along with some streaming services.
Laid-off workers like Donnelly say they expect to be rehired in six to 12 months by Roshel, a Canadian manufacturer of armored vehicles that is buying the plant. Roshel said in a statement that it’s “working with everyone involved not only to protect the current workforce, but to more than double it over the coming years through a phased process.”
Laid-off workers are looking for hope
On the Monday before the layoffs, Morgan Hughes and JoJo Burkhard were knocking on doors in Kettering, a Dayton suburb named after the inventor of the electric car starter. They were trying to convince union members and retirees to vote for Democrats.
The Navistar job had helped Hughes, 35, buy a house at age 21 and work alongside her father.
When her hours were first cut, Hughes moonlighted for DoorDash and got a real estate license. On her wrist, she has a tattoo of a cross and the words “Be Still And Know,” a reference to Psalm 46:10, which speaks to how faith in God can overcome fear.
Hughes said that what union members and retirees want is to be heard after feeling ignored by politicians. Burkhard said inflation and the economy have made it easier to swing voters to their side.
“It isn’t a hard pitch at all,” she said. “And even if they don’t want to stay Democratic long-term, they’ll at least give the candidates a chance this election, which could be a turning point for us.”
After a morning of talking to voters, the pair settled down at a Chinese restaurant for some potstickers, and the weight of the week hit them.
Burkhard cracked open a fortune cookie and tears began to well up. The layoffs meant no work for her, her boyfriend and her mother — and the words in small print almost seemed prophetic. She said she needed the hope they conveyed.
Her fortune read: “You’ll find your inner strength to overcome challenges.”
