Democrats with national ambitions are trying different approaches to reconnect with voters following November’s crushing election losses. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ticked off a few of them last Monday while speaking in a cramped basement of a United Steelworkers union hall in Martins Ferry, a small town along the Ohio River across from Wheeling, West Virginia.

Some are giving speeches, Walz said. Some are going on TV. Some have started podcasts.

“Some are in Ohio trying to listen to people,” he said, offering as good an explanation as any for what exactly he was doing there.

The Democratic Party’s approval rating is at a record low, several national polls this year show. Much of the slide has to do with Democrats’ frustration with their own party. Donald Trump’s rise, meanwhile, has been thanks in part to his poaching support from union households and other working-class voters who used to make up the Democratic Party’s base of support.

In response, Walz has launched a listening tour to Ohio and other red states, where he says he’s trying to find out what Democrats are doing wrong so he and others can try to reverse the damage. He described how the national party’s focus on a handful of top-tier swing states has left Democratic voters in places like Ohio feeling isolated.

“I think that there’s a hunger for folks to be heard,” Walz said in an interview in Zanesville, describing how his reception in Ohio was similar to his stops in other red states such as Texas and Nebraska. “I think there’s a frustration with [national Democrats] that ‘You don’t hear from us.’”  

Walz is also testing his strength as a potential national candidate

Built into the trip was the unspoken truth that Walz also is testing whether his time in national politics will end with the three months he spent as Kamala Harris’ running mate during last year’s presidential election. Other possible 2028 contenders also have trekked to Ohio recently, including former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttiegieg and U.S. Rep. Ro Khana. While it seems far-fetched today to imagine Ohio being in play in November, it could make for a solid prize for a Democratic presidential candidate in the 2028 primary election.

In comments to reporters, Walz said he isn’t sure what his next political steps will be. But he offered another reason for his visit: He’s hoping to foster the liberal equivalent of the conservative Tea Party movement that followed Barack Obama’s 2008 ascension to the White House. 

“You better get in line and follow this group, because the party is leaving you,” he told reporters in Youngstown. “I can bring a platform and throw a little fuel on the fire.”

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland accompanied Walz for much of his two-and-half-day  tour. He suggests Walz is on to something. Strickland said he remembers as governor looking out the window of his state office, watching John Kasich speak to a Tea Party rally. Some Democrats dismissed the event at the time as engineered by business interests. But Kasich ended up ousting Strickland in the 2010 election in part fueled by the energy of the Tea Party movement.

“The Tea Party had an effect,” Strickland said in an interview. “It appeared to be somewhat spontaneous and grassroots-driven. And I think what we’re experiencing in this country now is a grassroots-driven response to what the Trump administration is doing across health care, education, you name it.”

Targeting districts where GOP officials are staying out of sight

The official reason for Walz’s tour is that he’s bringing town hall meetings to congressional districts represented by Republicans whom Democrats charge don’t have the courage to schedule their own.

Last week In Youngstown, where the surrounding area has become solidly Republican recently, Walz gave Northeast Ohio Democrats a presidential campaign-style political rally that they never got in 2024.

Music pumped and the crowd roared for reproductive rights. It booed President Trump at every opportunity. Event organizers said 2,600 people packed the DeYor Performing Arts Center in downtown Youngstown, including an overflow room. 

Walz kicked off his event by thanking the crowd for showing up on a Monday night in a year with no presidential or statewide race before them. 

“You came here tonight because you recognize that being a citizen of this country means the responsibility to care enough about it to hold people accountable,” Walz said.

He said his run with Harris didn’t give him the vice presidency. But it did give him a platform that he plans to use. 

“I’ve got a megaphone that needs to be handed to the people of this district of Ohio,” Walz said.

Walz then teased the Republican U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, who was elected last year to represent Ohio’s 6th Congressional District, which includes Youngstown, for not coming to his event. 

Though Democrats’ invite to Rulli was mostly political theater, it did draw out Rulli, who in a statement called Walz a “failed vice-presidential candidate” and referred to his event as “pathetic.” 

Walz used the event to suggest Rulli should do what Walz said he did in 2010 when seeking re-election to Congress in Minnesota during a contentious midterm. At the time, Walz held town halls and fielded questions from angry Republican voters about the Affordable Care Act, which Democrats pushed through Congress before losing the majority. 

He said the failure by Rulli and other Republicans to do the same eventually will catch up with them.

“I stood in front of them for hours and took their questions about it for two reasons: It was my job and responsibility, and I was proud to stand on my principles that I was voting for,” Walz said.

Unlike the hostile questions Walz said he got in the town hall meetings of his past elections, most of the questions Walz fielded in Youngstown were friendly. There were variations on how Democrats can get through to people who were turning away from the party and toward Trump. But one attendee, a truck driver, asked why Walz supported automation technology that would jeopardize his job. 

Walz searched for an answer, eventually landing on the need to support labor unions and educate workers for the jobs of tomorrow. 

“I think it starts with acknowledging what the future is going to look like, the training that’s necessary, but making it clear that we need to value labor for what it is, pay accordingly,” Walz said.

The attendance and energy and engagement at the Youngstown rally stood in stark contrast to the sole public visit Ohio got from a notable national Democrat last year. Former President Bill Clinton spoke to a small crowd at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center while campaigning for then-Sen. Sherrod Brown on the eve of the November election. The small showing in retrospect foreshadowed a lack of enthusiasm for Ohio Democrats. Brown lost his race, and Trump won the state by 11 points, building on his 2016 and 2020 margins.

The evening after his Youngstown visit, another capacity crowd showed up to see Walz  in Lorain, a former industrial city west of Cleveland where Republicans have been making inroads. 

Waiting in line and wanting change from Trump

Some Ohioans at the Youngstown event said they attended because they liked what the vice presidential candidate had to say last fall. 

Madeline Helmig, a lawyer from Cuyahoga Falls, said she thought Walz might have been more successful had he landed on the Democratic ticket in a more conventional way, rather than being rushed onto the ticket after former President Joe Biden dropped out and anointed Kamala Harris as his replacement.

“I feel like it was the series of events,” Helmig said. “I think it was the Harris-Walz ticket coming on too late.”

Many described being fired up by President Trump’s agenda, including his executive orders eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs. 

Alyssa Krotseng, a geology major at Kent State University, said she and her wife moved up their wedding date out of fear that gay rights might be undermined by the GOP. Another KSU geology student in line with Krotseng, Gracie Stevens, said she believes believes Trump’s anti-DEI agenda is already having a tangible impact, noting that an adviser at the school where she got her undergarduate degree had a grant frozen because she used the word “diversity” in their research.

“I know a lot of scientists who have had their funding frozen or taken away because of the NIH freezes and stuff like that,” Stevens said. “It’s definitely hitting home.”

Also waiting in line outside the Walz rally on Monday night was Kelly Buchanan-Gelb. Wearing a U.S.A.I.D hat, she said she lost her job at the U.S. Agency for International Development as a senior humanitarian assistance officer as part of the Trump Administration’s rapid and surprising shuttering of the agency in February.

“I thought we were the safe ones,” she said, “because we do the stuff that both Republicans and Democrats support.”

Buchanan-Gelb’s mother, who lives in Geauga County,  joined her to hear what Walz had to say.

“Maybe he can give us some guidance on how to fight back,” Buchanan-Gelb said.

The complicated relationship between unions and Democrats take center stage

A typical Democratic event with union leaders is built around a candidate or elected official touring a training center or touting their pro-labor legislative agenda, media in tow and union members dutifully listening from folding chairs. 

But the surprisingly candid roundtable discussion Walz convened at a Parma union hall at United Autoworkers Local 1005 last Tuesday morning fell somewhere between a strategy session and group therapy. 

Sue Messinger, a former Parma teacher’s union president who now holds a regional leadership job for the Northeast Ohio Education Association, said she feels under attack by Ohio’s GOP-dominated legislature. 

“Unfortunately, a lot of my educator friends did not vote towards their profession,” Messenger said, alluding to members of her union who sided with Trump. “We know how that goes. And they’re feeling it now. It’s really unfortunate, because I don’t know what the answer is.” 

State lawmakers recently expanded spending on private school vouchers while not funding public schools to the extent requested by school officials. Trump is also taking steps to abolish the U.S. Department of Education.

Cleveland Teachers Union Shari Obrenski said her union is more politically unified around Democrats. But she offered more of what sounded like political advice, calling opposition to vouchers a winning issue, while saying transgender issues are a losing one that must be addressed. 

“We have to differentiate the message. Republicans killed Sherrod Brown on the transgender issue,” Obrenski said. “Now can the Democratic Party turn its back on the LGBTQ+ community? No. But we have to figure out how to thread the needle. Because we are driving people away who are being frightened by what honestly should be a non-issue.”

In contrast to some other prominent national Democrats, Walz said the party shouldn’t jettison support transgender rights for political expediency. But he also complained how Republicans successfully leveraged a cultural issue that affects few people.

“I don’t want to minimize that, because I think we should look at this issue about fairness in sports,” Walz said. “They’re smart. They bring this up, whatever it would be. It may be an important issue, but I think we got to get back at their hearts or whatever. Is it important enough that the suicide rates go up a bunch amongst little kids because of it?” 

Tariffs are top of mind for unions during stops in Ohio

During the UAW meeting Walz said he wanted to better understand why union workers increasingly lean toward Trump. Dan Schwartz, president of the Parma UAW chapter, estimated 40% of his members voted for Trump, having been drawn to the “drama” and social media bravado that surrounds the president.

But Walz also wanted to talk about Trump’s tariffs, which is an issue that helped the president build his base of support among union voters. 

Walz pointed out that Democrats were more protectionist in the 1990s when the U.S. normalized trade relations with China. But today, it’s a Republican administration pursuing some of the broadest tariffs in modern history.

“This is one thing I’m not sure we that folks out there are hearing,” Walz said.

Walz specifically asked leaders why they support tariffs. 

Tony Totty, president of the UAW chapter in Toledo, said union leaders believe Trump’s tariffs, which auto companies have said will drive up costs and hurt the industry, are a negotiating ploy.

“It’s trade deals, not tariffs, right? Tariffs get them to the table, but the trade deal solidifies it,” Totty said.

Elsewhere during his stops in Ohio, Walz emphasized the damage Trump’s tariffs had waged on the stock market, taking down people’s 401Ks. 

“You didn’t have to agree with Ronald Reagan,” Walz said at a stop in Zanesville. “But you sure as hell knew he wasn’t going to blow up the damn stock market.”

A pair of protestors outside the Steelworkers union hall in Martin’s Ferry unsubtly referenced the issue. Randy Lollini and Ashley West, helped up signs supporting Trump’s tariffs and accusing Walz and other “uniparty politicians” of selling out workers.

Lollini, whose family owns a building materials business next door, said Trump’s tariffs would have saved a former steel processing mill across the street that closed years ago and that’s now a massive, crumbling brick building. He gave credit for Trump for being willing to upset the international consensus on free trade.

“It’s been the issue of my time. I argued about in college 25 years ago, and I was, sadly right then and probably the professors were wrong,” Lollini said.

West, Lollini’s sister, said prices have been rising since the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, including during Joe Biden’s years as president. She said people didn’t “complain” then as much as they are about the possibility that tariffs may increase prices now. 

“I mean what’s the difference at this point?” West said. “You know, short-term gain for a long-term gain. I think it’s a hell of a lot more worth it than going in the other direction we’ve been continuing.” 

After the roundtable discussion ended in Parma, a question-and-answer session ensued. The first to speak was Fred Crow, Jr., political director for the Teamsters Local 436 in Valley View. He let loose on Walz with a loud, rapid-fire mix of criticism and praise for Democrats.

“Your only answer to labor has been to say, ‘Hey, you know what? We’re better than the other guy,’” Crow said. “That’s not enough for my people. And Sherrod [Brown] saved my pension. But what happened to the border?”

“Democrats have kept us at the kid’s table at all levels, and we did a bad job of holding people accountable. It’s got to stop,” Crow said. “It might be too late already, but I’d like to think that there’s a chance we can bring it back.”

After gathering his thoughts for a moment, Walz agreed with some of Crow’s criticism about Democrats’ failure to pass a union-backed legislation over a decade ago.

But he said he’s taking his tour to figure out what the party needs to do next.

“I don’t know what the fix is on all the other stuff, but I think this is it, Walz said. “It’s what I’m out here for,” Walz said.

An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote to Alyssa Krotseng that actually was said by Gracie Stevens. It has been corrected.