Cap screwed on the head, Matt shares the same priority as the speaker: to curb this “inflation out of control” by saying “stop” to the Democratic leaders during these mid-term elections, he told AFP, l one of his daughters in his arms.
An hour from there, a change of scenery: a large, dark minivan drives slowly from one pavilion to another, Sunday is dreary. “It must be here, the 800 number,” says Amy Cox, who gets out of the car full of energy to hang leaflets on the front doors.
Back at the wheel, the dog Toby installed near the handbrake, the Democratic candidate for the local election explains that she is campaigning on what moves her: abortion, because “for many women (…), their rights are far more important than inflation”.
With the approach of the “midterms”, one subject nevertheless crushes all the others: the rise in prices. And, in residential towns of Ohio where Halloween pumpkins and campaign signs grow, Republicans are trying to exploit this theme to rally voters – when Democrats, determined to defend the right to abortion, tend to dodge it.
“Now, going to the supermarket, you spend 350, 400 dollars for a family of four”, resumes Matt Kruse, short hair and dark polo shirt. “Before, it cost you less than 200 balls!”
– Inflation as “a tax” –
“When they talk about abortion, this kind of thing, it doesn’t affect everyone”, judges the 43-year-old policeman. While in this Ohio straddling the industrial northeast and the agricultural Midwest, “the majority of people are middle class, popular, (inflation) it affects us.”
“The inflation that is hitting this country is a tax on the middle class,” insists J.D. Vance in Mt Orab, where Matt came to listen to him. In 2020, the county voted 78% for Donald Trump, supporting J.D. Vance in one of the nation’s most watched duels.
In jeans and a white shirt, the 38-year-old candidate insists on the soaring price of eggs, “it’s crazy, it’s crazy”, and the thirty activists to acquiesce in a whisper.
He also recalls his modest local origins, those he recounted in a book that made him famous, “Hillbilly Elegy”. “We need to go back to a country where people like my grandma can go shopping without emptying their bank accounts,” says J.D. Vance.
First point of his leaflet: fight against inflation “caused” by Joe Biden.
– Anger –
“If the Democrats keep printing money, it’s going to get worse and worse, we have to stop it,” annoys Angela Marlow, mother of nine with drawn features. “The state of the economy is pushing people to vote Republican,” concludes the activist.
Inflation, at its highest for almost 40 years, is by far the main concern of Americans.
But the Supreme Court’s decision in June to blast the right to abortion has also shaken the country, women in particular. And it’s with that cold anger that Democrat Amy Cox campaigns amid the fall-colored trees in Trenton, southwestern Ohio.
Cap on her head, she gets out of the car, crosses a garden, knocks on a door. An old lady appears, Amy Cox leaves a leaflet. Above, his name and Tim Ryan, his opponent to J.D. Vance for the Senate.
– “We don’t call that inflation” –
“We are pro-workers, for higher wages…”, assures the local candidate, before coming to what affects her the most: “we have to take care of people, especially women, we are the ones that make the whole world go round, right?” she says before moving on to the next door.
First point of his leaflet: the defense of the right to abortion.
At his side in the dark minivan, Melissa VanDyke, candidate in the neighboring constituency. “We don’t campaign on inflation, because we don’t call it inflation,” she said, “we call it corporate greed.” The priority for its volunteers: to telephone young women from conservative homes to convince them to vote Democratic.
Anyway, loose the 42-year-old activist, many white men from the working classes are already “lost” for her party.
