Ohio will be a battleground again in the fall, especially for the rural vote

Hillary Clinton said in her Ohio victory speech last night that no one had ever become president after losing the Ohio primary. She was looking ahead to the general election, when Ohio is again expected to be a pivotal state. So was Kevin Merida of The Washington Post, who went to Darke County in west-central Ohio to size up the feelings of rural voters, who provided President Bush's margins of victory in Ohio and the nation.

"In Rural Ohio, It's No Country for Democrats," read the headline, playing off a hit movie. The first quote was from elected County Engineer James Surber: "It's very challenging in an area like this. Thirty years ago, when I came to this county, it wasn't that way at all. It was nip and tuck. But the 1980s have effected some changes that are almost impossible to deal with. Two issues that have worked against us are abortion and gun owners' rights."

Bush got 70 percent of Darke County's vote in 2004. "His margins in rural Ohio swung the state for him and thus swung the election," Merida notes, citing data from the Center for Rural Strategies. "Recent polling done by the center, however, has shown some erosion in the GOP's grip on rural voters, driven by the Iraq war, the economy and negative views overall of the Bush administration's stewardship of the nation. Democrats see an opportunity. . . . The fall strategy: Win southeastern Ohio, compete in the small towns of the north and cut the losses in the exurban and rural counties." (Read more)

For the Daily Yonder's analysis of yesterday's rural vote in Texas, click here.