YOUNGSTOWN, OH — The sweeping industrial policy implemented during Joe Biden’s presidency would appear perfectly designed to boost a blue-collar Democratic candidate like Sen. Sherrod Brown — it’s brought the promise of high-paying jobs, rebuilt infrastructure and helped leverage a national boom in manufacturing investment.
But at a rally in Youngstown on Tuesday, one week before Election Day in his hard-fought reelection race, that agenda was barely part of Brown’s closing argument.
Speaker after speaker at a local Teamsters union hall praised the senator’s record, focusing on his efforts to provide health care for veterans, fight for abortion rights, fight against bad trade deals, cap the price of insulin at $35 and stop fentanyl smuggling. Almost unmentioned were the senator’s efforts to bring manufacturing jobs to the state, which was referenced once in passing by the head of the ironworkers union in a speech that — like others at this rally — otherwise dwelled heavily on Brown’s efforts to save union pensions.