Former President Donald Trump “has changed things like Ohio,” Republican Party of Ohio Chairman Alex Triantafilou said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.
Ohio now stands as a solidly red state, even boasting supermajorities in both its House and Senate. Former President Donald Trump won the last two presidential elections in the state — the same state that went for former President Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. When asked what has changed, Triantafilou pointed directly to Trump.
“I mean, at the end of the day, it is Donald Trump. And again, this is one of those phenomena that our corrupt mainstream press just can’t cover properly, but Donald Trump has changed things like Ohio,” he explained, noting the shift in the political parties that has occurred under Trump’s leadership.
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“It was a four-year period between Barack Obama winning the state and Donald Trump winning it comfortably. Donald Trump came to Ohio and said, ‘I care about the Rust Belt. … I care about working people.’ He had a simple message that Ohioans love,” he said, adding that Trump has a “special relationship here with Ohio and that’s really what changed.”
A supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a sign during a plane-side rally at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna, Ohio, Monday, March 14, 2016. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)
“Donald Trump just injected, you know, a new energy into the party and we saw a lot of just, you know, people coming into the Republican Party. And you know, look, I’d like to tell you that it’s my organization and other things, but I’m being realistic. And I’ve been around this long enough to tell you that the top of our ticket has been transformational, and President Trump has been, you know, a major component,” he continued, also giving credit to other candidates they are supporting but stressing that “you just can’t deny Donald Trump’s impact here in Ohio.”
Further, Triantafilou said Ohioans see that Democrat policies are hurting their state, especially after watching the economic problems hit in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
Scrap cleared out of an abandoned General Motors automotive assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, lies in the yard on September 25, 2012. (MIRA OBERMAN/AFP/GettyImages)
“Ohioans took a look at that and said, this is because of the policies of the Democratic Party, which is, you know, this rampant free trade stuff without really restrictions on it. We’ve seen manufacturing leave this state in big numbers as we’ve seen auto plants shut down and we’ve seen you know, the steel industry took a huge hit in the Youngstown area in the northeastern part of the state. You know, this used to be a booming steel state, and Youngstown and all that went away, and those people said, you know, we’re being left behind in this global economy,” he said.
“And along came Donald Trump who said, ‘Make America Great Again. Let’s worry about American workers. Let’s worry about American jobs.’ And that resonates. I think, fundamentally, that’s the big difference here in Ohio is that he spoke to people,” he added.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.