Trump's Ohio suburb slide signals peril in industrial north

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Peggy Lehner, a Republican state senator in Ohio, doesn't sugarcoat what she has seen happen to support for President Donald Trump in her suburban Dayton district.

“It hasn’t ebbed. It’s crashed," said Lehner, who is not seeking reelection in the district of working-class and white-collar communities the president won comfortably four years ago. “He is really doing poorly among independents."

Trump's chances for a second term rest heavily on being able to maintain the margins he won by in 2016, particularly in suburban areas. He plans to campaign outside Toledo on Monday, as liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death stokes questions of whether the sudden court vacancy would energize more suburban voters who support abortion rights or social conservatives in small-town and rural areas who oppose them.

Republican lawmakers and strategists in Ohio say they are seeing research that shows a near-uniform drop in support from his 2016 totals across every suburban region of the state.

They say that Trump, who won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2016, maintains a yawning advantage in more rural areas and small towns. Still, Republicans are concerned that if he is losing badly in suburban areas in Ohio, it is a signal that Trump’s hold on other states in the industrial heartland that delivered him the presidency may be in peril.

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https://www.wfmj.com/story/42657268/trumps-ohio-suburb-slide-signals-peril-in-industrial-north