Trump claims Ohio’s economy is ‘booming.’ The November election might show if Ohio voters agree.

In these surreal times that try men’s souls, Ohio has come to a moment of reckoning. Early in-person voting and absentee voting by mail has begun. The midterm elections are a month away.

The Nov. 3 referendum, in the middle of a presidential term, is essentially a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the status quo. You either like the way things are going or you don’t.

The outcome of this off-year election will show as much about Ohio voters as it does the candidates on the ballot. What will it say about us in 2026?

In 2024, over 3-million Ohioans voted for Donald Trump giving him, as he boasted at a weekend rally in the state, “the highest vote total in the history of Ohio.”

He returned to Vandalia, for first time since his 2024 campaign stop at the Dayton airport, to galvanize support for Ohio Republicans in tight races for the U.S. Senate and governor.

His profanity-laced, hour-and-a-half speech at Butler High School was pointedly crude. So much for presidential decorum.

His sales pitch (?) for electing appointed U.S. Sen. Jon Husted and gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy “even if you hate” them was lousy.

He promoted data centers with Husted and Ramaswamy under fire for them. Trump, who’s approval rating on the economy has dropped to an all-time low, told rallygoers Ohio’s economy is “booming” just days before a nearby truck factory laid off 1,400 workers.

He derided Haitian immigrants down the road in Springfield, the same day the community buried one of its own, a 20-year-old college student who reportedly took his own life over the shame of wearing a conspicuous ICE ankle monitor.

He singled out a female reporter again for personal attacks — as the approving crowd in the high school gym erupted in loud boos.

Rally attendees chanted “Deport!” when Trump made several false statements about Springfield’s Haitians, inferred that they ruined a “beautiful, idyllic” town, and promised that it will soon be better because “they’re all being brought back to their country.” 

(Most of the immigrants living and working in the metro Springfield area arrived legally through Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian relief program for people fleeing countries unsafe from violence and disasters).

The Trump administration abruptly ended TPS for Haiti — considered too dangerous for American travel due to extreme risks of violent “crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest and limited health care” — but apparently fine for terrified Ohio Haitians sentenced to a life-threatening fate. “Deport! Deport! Deport!”

While massive chants swept the Trump rally in a Dayton suburb, hundreds of Ohioans, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife, grieved in Springfield and agonized over the inhumanity that had killed a promising young man.

“This country needs people like Pierre Damas Bel,” said DeWine after Bel’s heartbreaking funeral. “We need people who are smart, hard-working, who seek their own version of the American dream. We need these people. We needed him.” 

But even after the 20-year-old died, as the news paralyzed his family and friends with fresh, unbearable pain, the anti-immigrant hostility expressed at the Trump rally appeared online.

“One less plane ticket that we have to pay for” said one callous post on X.

Yet as ICE activity has escalated dramatically across Ohio, following federal termination of TPS nationals from countries such as Haiti, Syria, and Yemen, recent polling in the state showed a majority of voters disapprove of brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics (that brought down Bel) despite strong support for border security.

Thumbs down to masked, armed thugs in unmarked vehicles indiscriminately targeting people with no criminal background (including American citizens) who have the wrong skin color but thumbs up to secure borders done right. 

A majority of Ohio voter also think their state is on the wrong track economically, regardless of Trump’s bluster. They give the state a fair/poor rating with Trump’s job approval at 35%.

Affordability tops Ohioans concerns weeks away from the election as inflation outpaces income and costs climb on everything from childcare, utilities, housing, groceries, health care, and gasoline.

A temporary gas tax pause, enacted in a day by state lawmakers as a pre-election gimmick, hardly puts anyone on easy street.

Trump’s endless war of choice in Iran continues to drive up gas and diesel prices along with products you buy that now cost more to move and his reckless tariffs have hit families and businesses hard.

He may draw cheers from his diehard fans about the “golden age” he has supposedly brought to Ohio, but many Ohioans aren’t feeling it.

Polls also show most do not buy Trump’s upbeat spiel on Ohio’s rapid data center expansion — greenlit by state and local governments with zero transparency or community input.

Ohioans are sharing space with over 200 gigantic data centers that consume vast amounts of energy and millions of gallons of water daily while generating continuous noise pollution and air emissions from backup generators.

They are subsidizing tech companies worth trillions with higher utility bills and insane tax breaks while AI giants strain grids and deplete local resources with no public guardrails or value benefit to the community in permanent jobs.

But Trump dismissed data center concerns as he praised Husted, who once touted them, for a futile attempt to pass a “toothless” Senate bill with optional ratepayer protections that states would only be required to consider without any actual safeguards around paying for data center energy use. 

Ohioans have come to a reckoning. On all of the above. We know where the candidates land from rallies to funerals. But what will this election say about us?