Landslide in Ohio Shows GOP Path to Victory

The stunning landslide by underdog U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in the Ohio GOP primary shows the way for Republican victory throughout the all-important Rust Belt this fall. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and nearby Wisconsin can all be won with Moreno’s campaign theme: creating jobs for Americans.

Polling showed a too-close-to-call race between Moreno and the establishment-favored candidate, state senator Matt Dolan. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) and the popular former U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R) endorsed Dolan, who is the powerful state Senate Finance Committee Chairman.

Moreno is a former car salesman who campaigned that “for too long, the men and women who move Ohio forward, American workers, have been left behind by career politicians.” He was endorsed by Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who stated at a Trump rally that all of the net job growth under Biden’s presidency has gone to the foreign born, while during Trump’s presidency the job growth went to American citizens.

“I am so sick of Republicans that will say ‘I support President Trump’s policies, but I don’t like the man,’” Moreno declared to a cheering crowd. “This man wakes up every day fighting for us, fighting for this country.”

Trump’s rallies are a gold mine for our country and Republicans this year, without the Covid restrictions of 2020. From Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, 2020, the crucial period just prior to early voting, there were no Trump rallies in the key swing states of Michigan, Georgia, or Arizona, and only one in Wisconsin.

Trump’s Ohio rally boosted Moreno to victory, and more rallies like that in other Rust Belt states can work wonders. Emphasizing the issue of manufacturing jobs is a winner for all Republicans.

Tyson Foods just announced that it is laying off 1,300 workers in an Iowa city of only 8,000. Many suspect that Tyson will replace those workers with migrants, and a federal tax break called the Work Opportunity Tax Credit provides employers an incentive of up to $9,600 for each new hire from certain targeted groups, plus housing benefits.

A quarter of the new jobs during the Biden presidency have been government employment, which burdens taxpayers with no net benefit. Much of the remaining job growth consists of part-time second jobs and other low-wage work rather than well-paying manufacturing jobs.

Wage growth is sharply declining in the U.S. Many of the most desirable companies to work for have announced job cuts, including American Airlines, Alphabet (Google), Citigroup, UPS, and Amazon.

Winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia or Arizona is all Trump needs to retake the White House in 7 months. Michigan is more dependent on car manufacturing than Ohio, and last Wednesday Biden delivered a death knell to the auto industry. 

Biden issued regulations through the EPA that will require most new cars and trucks to be electric vehicles or hybrids in less than a decade, by 2032. Unless reversed, the new rules will transfer hundreds of thousands of automaking jobs from Michigan to China, which is churning out electric vehicles more cheaply than anyone else.

Biden follows the lead of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has required that electric vehicles comprise most new vehicle sales by 2028, and by 2035 all sales of new cars, SUVs, and light trucks must be electric. Biden gave California a special waiver from the Clean Air Act to allow leftwing environmentalists to impose their own emissions requirements, and 11 additional states foolishly plan to adopt California’s unrealistic ban on gasoline-powered cars.

Biden’s pro-China car mandates will bankrupt Detroit’s auto manufacturers. EVs are immense money-losers for the “Detroit Three” companies, totaling less than 4% of sales by General Motors and Ford last year.

This issue can flip Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to the Republican side, as it has already done for Ohio. Both Michigan and Pennsylvania depend on manufacturing jobs, and cold Wisconsin winters require gasoline-powered cars rather than the temperature-fussy EVs.

Biden’s campaign recognizes that he has a jobs problem. Immediately after the Ohio primary Biden traveled to the swing state of Arizona to announce an $8.5 billion handout and $11 billion in loans to support Intel’s new semiconductor facilities to make chips on which electric vehicles depend far more than traditional cars do.

Biden is also taking advice from Democrat Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), who is up for reelection, opposing the planned takeover of US Steel by a Japanese company. Left-leaning Politico reports that “Sen. Bob Casey and other Democratic Rust Belt senators have been pushing Biden toward ever-more-populist trade and economic policies.”

Biden’s gestures are too little, too late. His policy of opening the border to illegal immigrants hurts American jobs, and his war on Detroit automakers by mandating EVs produced by China is devastating to the American worker.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.