Welcome to Ohio where Trump says ‘Haitians eat dogs’ and Democrats threaten a comeback

Early October days at Ohio State University in Columbus are arcadia days: warm sunshine, new-term optimism and the green in front of the Thompson library filled with people sitting out reading, having lunch, making the most of a golden afternoon. Across the pavilion is ‘The Shoe’, the century-old football stadium designed in the Romanesque tradition. For Ohioans, it’s not so much a sports stadium as a cathedral. On this afternoon, the gates are closed, waiting for the bitterness and snow of winter and the true heart of the season. But from the interiors comes the sound of a lone brass instrument, as if a band player had been left behind from the previous weekend game. Near the statue of Archie Griffin, Ohio’s fabled 1970s-era running back, the Piatt family are taking photos. Evie Piatt, a junior from Millersburg, is hoping to attend on Ohio State and her family are on an arranged visit. She has yet to attend a full Ohio game. “But we watch ’em every Saturday. I’ve been to the spring games – defence versus offence,” she says.READ MORE“It’s really cool. It just gives you a sneak peek of how they play.”Craig, her father, inherited his passion for the Buckeyes from his own father. We chat for a bit in the sunshine about their mortal enemy, three hours north, the University of Michigan.In a county the size of Ohio, a patchwork of 88 heavily agrarian and industrial counties, the performances of the Buckeyes have, for over a century, offered a source of conversation and pastime through Novembers and Decembers. The Piatt family has two older boys in college in Capital University, east of Columbus. For Craig Piatt, that has meant five significant intrastate drives within the past few weeks. “That’s a lot of money for gas,” he acknowledges. Craig and Evie Piatt at 'The Show' stadium in Ohio Piatt says he is a registered Republican but doesn’t always vote that way and, right now, is weighing up the various candidates on their own merits.Although Ohio voted for Donald Trump by 11 points in the 2024 election, it’s one of the many states in which Republican strategists are responding to distant sirens. In the Senate election for the seat JD Vance vacated after the 2024 election, Sherrod Brown, the veteran Democrat, is leading Jon Husted by anything from three to eight points in a succession of polls. In the gubernatorial election, Amy Acton, the Democrat hoping to beat Republican Vivek Ramaswamy (one of the presidential fantasists steamrolled by Trump early in 2024), has built a 54 to 48 per cent lead over her opponent. More alarmingly for Republicans, Ramaswamy trails his opponent by 57-32 per cent among Independent voters.“I’m still looking at each of the candidates,” Craig Piatt says.“I try not to follow through the TV because it so biased.”It seems a sensible policy. In Ohio, the advertisements are both relentless and relentlessly grim. [ Lone star Trump believes he can bend Texas and midterm elections to his willOpens in new window ]“For 50 years, Sherrod Brown voted how he was told. Higher taxes. Open borders. Sex changes for kids,” opens an attack advert on Brown. “He’s been called the face of data centres in Ohio,” begins a counter advert prosecuting Husted.Ohio voted for Donald Trump by 11 points in the 2024 election, but it is now a state of concern for Republicans. Photograph: Jason Mowry/Getty But the Republican is lagging behind. As a response, the Trump administration sent out a message that the president himself would visit the Buckeye state on Saturday, October 3rd, to rally with Husted. It would be part of Trump’s hastily announced barnstorming tour of Republican strongholds, in defiance of plummeting personal approval numbers.The messy conflict with Iran is the obvious reason for the high fuel prices that have dismayed Midwesterners and the Piatt family are among the thousands acutely conscious of its cost.“I don’t,” Craig Piatt says, when asked if he feels the punitive fuel prices are worth it.“I feel like it is going to be like any other war in the Middle East. It is going to go on, and on, and on. And I’ll be honest with you, as patriotic as most folks are in this country, we are just tired of war. We are tired of being in other people’s business. We have issues here we need to fix. The last couple of months have given me pause for thought— Craig Piatt, Ohio“I don’t follow politics that closely, but I would say we are pretty blessed where we live. Housing is high but we are blessed to own our house. Groceries are kind of going up more and more. All in all, it’s been a pretty good place for our family to raise our kids. But I know we’ve got friends all over the state and country that are hurting. “I will say this: I think that if he [Trump] could stop spending time on his social media account and making enemies and making dirt and just worry about our country, I think it would be a lot better. And the last couple of months have given me pause for thought – just concerns over his actions and things he said. I think a lot of us are looking forward to the next presidential election.”Over the course of a few days, I drove across Ohio on Route 40, the fabled “national road”, a narrow, thin ribbon running through quiet villages and corn and soybean fields which, in the October light, looks cinematic. This is the land that generations of presidential aspirants have dutifully referred to as “the heartland”. Ohio has delivered a staggering seven presidents born in the state, all Republican, while an eighth, William Henry Harrison, a Whig, forged his political career there. Route 40, the first federally-funded road in the United States, is a moseying, peaceful saunter through bucolic countryside, silent towns, churches, car junkyards, antiques shops, well-tended gardens and posters on the telegraph poles honouring local military members from the Civil War through to Iraq. It’s a world of many ice-cream parlours and few bars.In its industrial glory years, when it marketed itself as Champion City, Springfield’s population swelled to 80,000. Photograph: Matthew Hatcher/ AFP via Getty Springfield, Ohio, is about an hour’s drive west of Columbus. After decades in national obscurity, it created a firestorm of controversy during the 2024 election after, first, Vance – who was raised in Ohio – and then Trump made the notorious claim that a local Haitian community were eating cats and dogs. When Trump repeated the bizarre idea during his lone televised debate against Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Springfield officials immediately phoned the broadcasting network to stress that it wasn’t true. But the damage was done. The stigma stuck. In its industrial glory years, when it marketed itself as Champion City, Springfield’s population swelled to 80,000. It had fallen to just over 30,000 when Haitians, attracted by job opportunities and the affordable living costs began to arrive in the city. There was a swell of new arrivals in 2021 and 2023, bringing the total number to around 15,000. Almost all arrived through legal pathways. The ending of the Temporary Protected Status privilege has led to an intensification of summer Ice arrests and deportations, terrifying the community.“It has not been huge activity compared to Minnesota, but they seemed to absorb the lessons of that and moved stealthily,” explains Michael McGovern, who works for Innovate Ohio, a Columbus-based non-profit.“A lot of folks did the right things here and so provided the federal government with all their details. So, it was easy for Ice to arrive in homes and scoop them up. That’s what’s been happening in the late summer period. And one really draconian aspect was that a number of Haitians were forced to wear ankle monitors and there’s a lot of stigma to that.”Haitian flag keychains for sale are displayed near the register at the Creations Market shop which caters mainly to Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Trump’s visit to Vandalia, about an hour west, coincided with the funeral service held in Springfield for Pierre Damas Bel. The 20-year-old had excelled since arriving in Ohio from Haiti; a soccer star who had won a full scholarship to study neuroscience at Wright University. He had been forced to wear an ankle bracelet by immigration, even while playing football. He detailed his distress in a July post that read: “I came here to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation I never imagined I would experience.”On the morning of August 31st, Pierre Damas Bel pulled his 2006 Toyota Avalon on to the hard shoulder of the 1-70. In a harrowing account in The Atlantic, the driver of a tractor trailer explained how he was unable to avoid the pedestrian as he walked out into oncoming traffic in an apparent suicide. They are hearing stories of these deportations back to Haiti— Michael McGovern, Innovate OhioMike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, was among those in the funeral congregation on Saturday. DeWine has repeatedly defended Ohio’s Haitians, arguing that they had revivified Springfield’s local economy – and pointing out that as of 2030, Ohioan death rates would exceed birth rates. In other words, the Buckeye state is going to need new people.A Creole restaurant I visited on lunchtime was empty. The host was smiling and welcoming but said that his boss warned him not to speak and pointed me towards the houses behind the Speedway station. He said that’s where everyone was, at home. Haitians are hiding out.“They are hearing stories of these deportations back to Haiti – stories of people kidnapped off the plane or hassled for bribes because they know these planes are coming from the US so there are resources,” says Michael McGovern.“And a lot of people feel in mortal danger if they are deported back to Haiti. It’s under-recognised and it’s a shameful thing for our country.”Downtown Springfield was, at least on the evening I visited, disconcertingly empty. Like so many Midwestern towns, it expanded quickly with the optimistic certainty that the manufacturing boom would last forever. On a sublime evening – striated sky, warm breeze – its downtown was deserted apart from a tour guide in costume and lantern escorting a small group on a ghost tour and, at the hotel, two guys from Las Vegas who were contracted to work on a nearby data centre. They’d been living in the hotel for months. One of the contractors, Valen, compared his turbulent youth in Sin City against the quietness of Springfield. He said he liked to unwind by sitting outside, smoking a blunt and watching the world not go by, which is what he was at when I encountered him. “I like it,” he said of Springfield. “People here are ... very ... cordial.”Colvin Bear, Judy Page, Clay Newlin, Kay Nutter and Suzanne McCoy at Champaign County Democratic headquarters. Photograph: Keith Duggan A short drive north of Springfield is Urbana, one of those dream-factory American towns with a succession of craft shops and coffee shops and candy-striped awnings and a retro-film theatre. I call in unannounced to the branch of the Champaign County Democratic headquarters. A group of volunteers has just finished meeting and are immediately welcoming. We talk for an hour about what it feels like to experience life as an American here, in this pleasant, obscure Ohioan town.As it turns out, Urbana is like a crossroads for the issues that are driving the national sentiment in 2026. The farmers are stressed by months of spiralling fuel costs. Locals are petitioning against a data centre contract signed without public knowledge by city officials. The voting patterns here have been distorted by redistricting, or gerrymandering, over the past 20 years. Champaign County voted for Donald Trump by 74 per cent two years ago (15,344 votes to 4,944 for Kamala Harris) but the group has sensed a dissatisfaction that transcends old allegiances.“My father is a long-term judge here who was elected twice as a Republican,” Clay Newlin says.“He is disaffected and he knows a lot of Republicans who are motivated to get out and vote Democrat because they are p****d off. Sorry! Farmers and rural people are very ticked off with what is going on. Tariffs are hitting all the people around us. So, it’s not just Democrats.”They want cheap water and cheap land, so we are a perfect site— Kay Nutter, Champaign County DemocratFears over the energy price hikes, the potential impact of the nearby Cedar Bog conservation area and noise and air pollution concerns for students in the elementary middle school and a senior citizen home are the driving factors in local opposition to a data centre. The issue is subject to a lawsuit that both parties are trying to resolve. A settlement proposal would see Thor Equities waive its $115 million (€102.5 million) damages lawsuit, future tax abatements and agree to pay the city of Urbana some $50 million in several project phases. It’s a lot of money for a small rural community. But a recent meeting drew more than 100 people holding placards that read “No Deal”.“They want cheap water and cheap land, so we are a perfect site,” explains Kay Nutter.“They say in their site plan [there will be] one building. But they bought 500 acres, so we fear they are going to build a campus, with eight or nine units and then the generators: it is going to be loud, and bright, 24-7.”We talk for a while about life in Buckeye state. “I love Ohio,” Suzanne McCoy says and the others chip in. Colvin Bear was raised in New Jersey but gravitated towards the Midwest for college and never left.“I like the open spaces, but I can still be at an airport in an hour. My house is in the country a mile from my neighbour, but we can get in the car and get to the shops in 10 minutes. While we may wish that many of the residents were more sensitive to others and a willingness to be open to be those who are different, most of them still have a good heart. Even though they may have their blind spots.”Carl Ruby, a pastor in Springfield. Photograph: Matthew Hatcher/ AFP via Getty On Saturday last, Carl Ruby, a pastor in Springfield, spoke at Pierre Damas Bel’s funeral. He assured the congregation that they were “a blessing and not a burden” to the town and they had many allies among the traditional Springfield community, some of whom were in attendance.“You have brought life, energy, love and a renewed sense of hope to Springfield and we not only welcome you, we also want to thank you.”On the same day, across in Vandalia, president Trump also had Springfield on his mind. Over the course of a 90-minute speech, he called out John Gruden, the former Superbowl winning coach, who was in attendance. “This is rougher than a football game,” he joked about the energy of the crowd. “They have more spirit,” he said, before returning to the theme of enemies vanquished.“They’ve tried to smear us, slander us, persecute us, demoralise us, they’ve attacked me, they’ve impeached me, they’ve arrested me and they’ve even tried to kill me, I guess. But with you by my side we have always prevailed.”Then he asked the crowd if they’d ever heard the parable of “The Snake”.“This is in honour of Springfield, Ohio,” he told them.“A quaint little town of 32,000 people where they took in 35,000 people and put ’em into Springfield and it didn’t work out too well and they are being removed. It was an idyllic place – that’s a word they use in high scripture. It was an ‘idyllic’ place. ‘Was’ is the better word. Not any more, but it soon will be and they are being brought back to their country.”So, while the Haitians mourned in Springfield, Trump read a rendition of The Snake with its strange refrain featuring a “tender-hearted woman” who voluntarily takes in a “poor, half-frozen snake”. She feeds him milk and honey before she is inevitably bitten and before dying, asks the snake why, after all her compassion, he had done this.“Shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin,” the president quoted, deepening his voice for dramatic effect as the crowd in Ohio listened in silence.“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”Attendees cheer behind US president Donald Trump during a campaign event at Butler-Vandalia Student Activity Center in Vandalia, Ohio. Photograph: Jessica Phelps/Bloomberg