As they drive the back roads of America, in places pollsters and the media tend to miss, voters appear once again close to toppling the current party in power.
Two years ago, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Republican Donald Trump, in gigantic part because he promised a calmer political climate and claimed he would work on both sides of the aisle to achieve bipartisan change.
But when the former vice president began his first day in office by shutting down the Keystone Pipeline, many of his appointees were concerned. Their fears deepened when he botched our exit from Afghanistan in August 2021. And when he called this year’s skyrocketing inflation “temporary,” many voters decided it was time to elect modern leadership in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
The Cook Political Report projects that Republicans will gain as many as 25 seats in the House of Representatives, regaining control of the chamber. In the Senate, RealClearPolitics projects that the Republican Party will win three seats in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, and will also hold seats in Ohio and Pennsylvania, taking control away from Democrats, who currently have just a one-vote advantage.
Meanwhile, in the 36-state gubernatorial races, several Democratic incumbents appear vulnerable against GOP challengers, especially in Wisconsin, Michigan and even blue-leaning New York. The long-awaited rematch in Georgia between Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams appears to be headed for a landslide for Kemp. But the biggest statewide upset may be in Oregon, where Democrat Tina Kotek is trailing Republican Christine Drazan amid widespread discontent over failed progressive policies.
Ultimately, the results will be decided by voters in America’s swing counties, where support between the two parties shifts easily.
Take Erie County, Pennsylvania. In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama easily won this county; In 2016, Trump won it by a whisker. In 2020, Biden just defeated Trump. Last year, a Republican won a statewide executive race for the first time in decades.
This year, Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz is running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania against Democrat Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in a tight toss-up race. Since 2020, Fetterman has repeatedly said that “whoever wins Erie will win Pennsylvania.” That’s why he held his first rally here since his stroke in May, and why Oz walked the streets of Erie in October, talking to local business owners and people he met along the way.
There I met Fred Rush, 79, who was leaning against the outside wall of Ringo’s Appliances in Erie, his gaze laser-focused on Oz. He told me he tries to decide whether a candidate’s interactions are expertly staged or natural.
Rush is a classic swing voter. He worked in local government for decades, starting with a Democratic mayor, to whom he reported for over a decade. He then served as Democratic and Republican county executives and then another Democratic mayor. He even worked for former Gov. Tom Ridge – an Erie native and Republican – as director of his commission on African American affairs.
Rush said he’s always voted for people from both parties, but this year he’s leaning toward Oz.
“My only concern about him is his lack of political experience,” he said. “But he is certainly emerging among communities that will show him what policies will impact their lives.”
Rush said there’s a large difference between a political candidate who shows up, attends a rally and then leaves, and one who actually meets with individual voters and listens to them.
“When people show up in communities, they show they care,” he said. “You need to come here and listen to the families who live here, those affected by crime, the plague of drug overdoses, those who cannot afford to buy food or pay utilities.
“The candidate who emphasizes these points wins.”
Oz also features the voices of Emerencia Torma, owner of the Hungarian restaurant Huszar on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Many experts believed that Republicans like Torma, 65, would be no match for Trump-backed Oz, who won the landslide primary by just 951 votes.
But after months of Covid-19 closures followed by crippling inflation, many Pennsylvania business owners have had enough and are tempted to pull the lever for a celebrity doctor. And not only him.
“I vote Republican. Totally Republican,” Torma says firmly.
Many of her neighbors seem to feel the same way. In the deep blue 12th Congressional District, where Torma lives, the race between Democratic state Rep. Summer Lee and Republican Borough Chairman Mike Doyle is shockingly close for a seat the GOP hasn’t held in decades.
Crime, drug utilize and homelessness have something to do with it. A gigantic homeless camp was established near the Tormy restaurant. Last month, two innocent women standing at a bus stop in the area were fired upon and killed. Torma calls the uncertainty of what comes next “unbearable” at times.
“I’m not going to give up, my parents came here for freedom and opportunity, that’s why I’m voting Republican,” said Torma, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1956. “They offer this choice; Democrats have failed us.”
Doug Wood, his wife Chelsea, and their three children are new to Dayton, Ohio. By 2020, 38-year-old Doug was happily settled in Peters Township, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, where he lived close to family and enjoyed a career as director of transportation and development at 84 Lumber.
But last fall, 84 Lumber’s adoption of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate changed everything for him.
“I decided not to get it, so I lost my job,” he said. “What particularly upset me about my company’s conduct was that it did not apply to all positions within the company. I was annoyed by the company because they were picking and choosing where to apply the mandate, and my choice was basically in favor.”
Wood has found a modern position in the transportation industry in Dayton, and his wife, Chelsea, 36, is now expecting their fourth child. Montgomery County, where they live, is the swingiest county. Obama won here by wide margins in 2008 and 2012. However, in 2016, Trump defeated Clinton, marking the first time since 1988 that voters in this county chose Republicans. Four years later, they chose Biden over Trump.
This year, Democrat Tim Ryan will run against Republican J.D. Vance for U.S. Senate in Ohio. The two candidates have been neck-and-neck for months, but a recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows Vance trailing by 2 points.
In any other year, Wood said he would take another look at Ryan Vance, author of the best-selling 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which gained Trump’s endorsement.
But not this year.
“It was the uncertainty Democrats have brought to every aspect of our lives and the overreach that made me vote for Vance. Hell, I only vote for Republicans,” Wood said, adding that voting for one party at the bottom of the ticket is something he rarely does.
“The way inflation has disappeared (is) just a complete misjudgment of the impact that government spending will have on the country,” he added.
He is also concerned about public education policy.
“For example, we moved into a particular school district and we pay higher taxes to ensure that our children receive a high-quality education in public schools,” he said. Now he and his wife are rethinking that decision.
“Now it seems OK, but you only worry about the public school sector. Have we made the right choice? Should we send our children to a Catholic school or find a private school? “I would not hesitate to pull children out and re-evaluate their education if I felt their education was not math and science and was instead becoming part of a woke culture.”
He shakes his head at the state of the country.
“I voted for Barack Obama, I voted for Donald Trump. I’m quite independent.
“But the last few years have made me more conservative.”
