Your Vote Ohio

They came from all corners of Ohio, all walks of life, and they’re all trying to cope with the coronavirus pandemic in many of the same ways — more face time with family; experimenting in the kitchen; finally cleaning out that old, junky garage.

A new poll that shows President Donald Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in Ohio also reveals that Mr. Biden’s “strong” supporters here outnumber Mr. Trump’s, a snapshot of the state less than 100 days from an election that will determine whether Ohio continues its unmatched swing-state streak.

Just months before Election Day, voters of all stripes in Ohio are at the same time both worried and hopeful. They’re not sure who to trust in the media and government. They’re concerned about economic security for themselves and fellow Americans. They aren’t sure how the election will go down during a pandemic. They want honest leaders to come up with more fixes to serious problems. But at the same time, they are hopeful that the protests are opening eyes to systemic racism, the need for reform and the next generation of leadership. The fact that the protests are drawing black and white, young and old is seen as a sign of unity during a very divisive time in the country. And they’re lifted by seeing small acts of kindness during the pandemic – neighbors helping strangers. Your Voice Ohio , a collaborative journalism project involving nearly 50 news outlets, held multiple two-hour online conversations in early July with voters from across the state to hear more about what concerns them

The uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing protests for racial justice, concern for how the economic recession will affect businesses, families, and communities, and the overwhelming amount of misinformation circulating online about everything from vaccines to voting have already made 2020 a year unlike any other. Not surprisingly, people are stressed as they sort through unprecedented volumes of information (some of it intentionally misleading), worry about how to be safe and healthy, and pay the bills.

Manufacturing is among the first sectors that get hit by a recession … and the last to battle back. So for decades, a Northeast Ohio county like Trumbull -- built on steel and autos -- has struggled even when others have recovered. Now, by accident and intention, Trumbull County is diversifying.

The collapse of traditional manufacturing has hit Trumbull County as hard as any place in Ohio. Drastic cuts at the GM plant in Lordstown have many trying to figure out if the economic pummeling will continue -- and if there are alternatives.

The Mahoning Valley has been one of the hardest hit areas in the state by the ongoing opioid crisis. As local officials continue to struggle to find ways to reduce the number of fatal overdoses, one program being tried in other parts of Northeast Ohio may provide some relief. As part of the media collaboration, Your Voice Mahoning Valley, we look at whether needle exchanges could provide a solution to the problem of opioid addiction. County and municipality needle exchanges — six are operating in Ohio --- allow addicts to get clean syringes free of charge and free from potential arrest. Summit County has had one of the programs since last year. Health Commissioner Donna Skoda says it is helping to stop the spread of disease and that will help get addicts into treatment and on a path back to health. “A substance-use disorder is a chronic disease. Individuals who are users wanting recovery recover their whole lives. It’s like diabetes; it doesn’t just go away. And the last thing we want

Your Voice Mahoning Valley grows from a belief that the people are not being heard and that solutions to problems they face are not receiving adequate attention. The project is part of a statewide effort begun in late 2015 as Ohio news organizations worked together, experimenting with new ways to represent the people of Ohio in the 2016 election. Backed by research conducted by the Jefferson Center , a non-partisan civic research organization in St. Paul, and polling by the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron , the news organizations, led by the Akron Beacon Journal , developed a working model for listening to Ohioans and joining with the public in working toward solutions. The Your Voice Ohio media project has selected the Mahoning Valley as a test site to work closely with citizens in identifying solutions to the heroin epidemic. What the people decide here will be used as a model for other news outlets to tackle the crisis statewide, and then launch

Ohioans level of comfort with the rhetoric of the 2016 presidential campaign varied by age, race, gender, economics and topics. But a recent poll for the Your Vote Ohio shows just about everyone had a problem when the talk targeted certain groups rather than issues.

Donald Trump’s biggest applause line at rallies in Ohio continues to be a promise: “Don’t worry; we’re going to build a wall.” It’s a line that oddly resonates in a state where the experience with immigration is far different from most of the country. Ohio has only about a third the national average when it comes to the percentage – 4 percent -- of foreign-born people living here. The state ranks 12th from the bottom. And of that tiny group of immigrants, fewer than one-in-five is here without the necessary papers. Moreover, support for Trump is strongest in the counties where immigrants are least likely to be found – if not leaving. Polling of Ohioans for the Your Vote Ohio project shows an odd disconnect on the issue. Asked in an open-ended question to name the top issues in 2016, immigration doesn’t make the top 10. But when asked to define the reasons they like either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, it’s his stand on immigration that helps Ohioans define Trump as a good candidate.

When Ohioans begin voting next month for the highest office in the land, hundreds of thousands of them will hold their noses and check the box for a candidate they don’t like, don’t trust and don’t respect. A poll conducted for Your Vote Ohio , a consortium of Ohio news organizations, including this one, found the candidates have reached a level of unpopularity that may be unprecedented in the history of American politics.

If you’re born poor in America, you’re likely to end up that way. Born rich, it’s likely to stay that way. A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland confirms that achieving the American Dream may be growing harder. F or many of the Ohioans who took a recent University of Akron Bliss Institute poll, the study confirms what their guts were already telling them this election season. More than one-out-of-every-10 Ohioans who took the open-ended survey listed income inequality as one of the nation’s biggest issues. That’s more than those who picked trade alone, more – even – than those who picked jobs. And yet in many minds, the issues are all of one cloth. The American Dream Bill Carpenter is a 56-year-old accountant who works for a downtown Dayton bank. “I think there’s plenty of jobs out there, but there’s not plenty of livable-wage jobs out there. Kids who are getting out of school now are having to work anywhere from $9 to $12 an hour with an undergraduate degree. That’s

Note: This story is part of Your Vote Ohio, a political collaboration of WKSU , the Beacon Journal and other media in Ohio focused on reshaping politics and political coverage in Ohio this election year. Hillary Clinton and her PACs have reserved $91 million in TV ad buys in Ohio and six other swing states. Rob Portman just reserved $15 million worth of TV and on-line advertising for his senatorial battle against Ted Strickland. So Ohioans are pretty much guaranteed to be inundated with political ads from the summer through the fall. WKSU’s M.L. Schultze spoke with a political scientist about ways people can sort out the emotions and factual claims – and challenge their own biases. Peeling back the layers of political ads Travis Ridout – the co-author of the “The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising” – says consumers should begin their examination of political ads with a simple question: Who paid for it? “Is it coming from everyday citizens? Is it coming from a couple of

Political campaigning and ads are getting more personal than ever, thanks to big data. In Ohio, the Senate campaigns of Rob Portman and Ted Strickland have volunteers whose job is to go door-to-door with iPads and collect data that will be used to create ads specifically targeting you this fall. The Beacon Journal’s Doug Livingston has been researching big data's role in political ads. He says the way campaigns approach voters has become even more tech-savvy and intimate this election year. The roots of big data Livington says the emergence of big data in campaigning started about 10 years ago, when former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean said each state needed to build a unified strategy at the grassroots level. That led to state parties developing and maintaining voter files by compiling a sketch of all the likely Democratic and swing voters with information about how they behave and how they’ve voted in the past. "It’s much more than what you can download from the secretary

Clarification: The list of options for you to check on political ads was incomplete on the earlier version of this story. The complete list is below. Also, Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania operates flackcheck and factcheck.org Like the cicadas -- only a lot noisier -- political ads are about to blanket Ohio and other swing states. And what’s coming is likely to be more negative, more misleading and more targeted than ever.

This election cycle, WKSU is teaming with nearly a dozen newspapers, radio and TV stations across Ohio to help re-engage citizens in the political process. The project YourVoteOhio officially launched on Sunday and included a piece from Toledo Blade political reporter Tom Troy looking at the dynamics of political advertising.

Political ad spending has been growing exponentially in Ohio and nationwide -- especially among the outside groups airing more than 80 percent of the ads in the GOP primaries. WKSU’s M.L. Schultze spoke with the head of one of the groups trying to keep up with the claims made in those ads, as well as those made in speeches, debates and rallies. Factcheck.org is a nonprofit at the University of Pennsylvania that sees itself as a consumer advocate for voters. This campaign cycle, Director Eugene Kiely and the handful of staff at Factcheck have been trying to keep up with claims made by and about many of the two dozen Democrats and Republicans who at least for some period were running for president. I talked with him about the goal and the process. “We’re not going to check opinion. If someone says the stimulus is a disaster or Obamacare is a disaster, that’s fine. But if someone makes a specific claim about unemployment rates, Obamacare, then we can start taking a look at that.” The look