Playing electoral defense, Trump to promote recovery in Ohio

WASHINGTON (AP) — Forced to play defense in states he led comfortably months ago, President Donald Trump set his sights on Ohio on Thursday in an attempt to reframe the centerpiece of his reelection pitch.

During his visit, Trump planned to promote the economic prosperity that much of the nation enjoyed before the coronavirus pandemic and try to make the case that he is best suited to rebuild a crippled economy. But his handling of the outbreak has weakened his bid for a second term, causing Trump to spend time and resources in a state he won easily in 2016 but now could be in danger of slipping away.

The president also intended to use the Ohio trip to kick off a long weekend of fundraising that comes as his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, has chipped away at Trump’s financial advantage as the race enters its final three months.

The virus upended Trump’s plan to run on the back of a strong economy, and Biden has charged that the president has pushed to reopen states too soon in hopes of jump-starting the markets and lifting his standing in the polls. But several states have had to slow down the pace of their reopening, and officials are warily watching a rise in coronavirus cases in the Midwest, including Ohio.

When Trump swept through the region in 2016, his economic populism argument was one of the factors that led him to narrowly capture Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He handily won Ohio, which had been a swing state for decades, by eight percentage points.

He promised a manufacturing renaissance, but that has failed to materialize. Manufacturers added jobs during the first two years of his presidency, but the gains effectively stalled in 2019 as industrial Midwestern states such as Michigan and Ohio began to shed factory workers.

The import taxes charged by his administration...