AURORA, Ohio — Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski stood in the far corner of the 95-year-old Aurora Inn at the doorway that separates its sun room from its Six Horses Tavern, which was once part of a stagecoach stop. The 6’8” sheriff of Portage County is hard to miss physically. However, Zuchowski keeps himself tucked in the corner, observing the room until J.D. Vance, the Middletown Republican seeking the open Senate seat, singles him out for the “outstanding” job he does to keep the county safe.
The son of a police officer in Cleveland has lived in this county since he was a child. Zuchowski says he spent 26 years with the Ohio State Patrol, then a couple of years as a special deputy in the sheriff’s office before running and winning his job as sheriff in 2020.
JD VANCE ON ‘GET TO KNOW YOU’ TOUR AS HE LABORS TO PULL AWAY FROM TIM RYAN
Vance is visiting this suburban Cleveland town’s storied inn, known for its original fireplaces, brick floors, and ceiling beams, to make his final argument to voters. Part of the conversation is about the high cost of basic needs: food, gas, and household supplies. He also discusses the crime and the drug overdoses that plague their towns and neighborhoods.
Attendees nod in agreement when Vance says that Democrats have lost the voters’ confidence on those basic issues — especially on crime and border enforcement, the latter of which is causing a surge in fentanyl deaths. It is hard to look around the room and find someone who hasn’t lost a family member, neighbor, or friend in their community to the synthetic opioid that now causes the bulk of drug overdose deaths in Ohio and across the United States.
Vance’s rival in the open Senate race, Rep. Tim Ryan of Trumbull County, represents Portage, which is also home to Kent State, as part of the congressional seat he is giving up for this statewide bid. Ryan nearly failed to carry this county in 2020 — something that had never happened before.
The other thing that had never happened to Ryan was the narrow loss of his home county of Trumbull. His seat, originally drawn on purpose as the most Democratic in the state, became less reliable thanks to the shift in the working-class vote away from the Democrats. Republicans have been building and are trying to hold together a coalition that includes the working class, whereas Democrats have gained ground with the cultural elite and upscale voters.
Standing in the middle of this shift are suburban voters, including the ones here in this wealthy suburb of Cleveland.
When Zuchowski won here two years ago, it marked the first time a Republican had won the sheriff’s office in more than a decade. Republican candidates also gained the majority of county commissioners’ seats in that election.
Politically, it makes sense for Vance to be here. The result in Portage has for years reflected which direction the state is going. Republican John Kasich won this county twice in both the 2010 and 2014 gubernatorial races. Barack Obama won here twice. Donald Trump won here twice.
Zuchowski says Portage is a mix of rolling bucolic rural areas, sprinkled with small towns, with Kent State and then the exurbs of Cleveland. It is near to Akron, a Summit County city that has played a central role in several drug trafficking rings here in Ohio, in Indiana, in Pennsylvania, and in West Virginia.
“Cartels are everywhere, I’ll attest to it,” said Zuchowski. “There is always something on the street. There’s a middleman. There’s somebody that’s figuring supply for them. Unfortunately, a lot of it’s coming from the southern border.”
Zuchowski said the reason they’ve been successful in his department is because they are allowed to do their jobs effectively. “We don’t like drugs, and we don’t want it in this county. We don’t want kids getting killed or hurt from drugs, and we’re going to do whatever we can,” he said. “I’m not naive enough to know that we can never stop all of the drugs.”
Along with the drugs comes the crime, which Zuchowski says has ticked upward as well. He understands why voters are moving toward Vance’s message because of their concerns.
“Over 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year,” he said. “While most of them were adults, a fast-growing number of them were teenagers, and parents are deeply concerned.”
Vance continued to talk to the crowd of supporters as Zuchowski stood, a sentinel guarding the room. When Vance finishes, he talks to supporters, several of whom tell him quietly that they have seen overdoses firsthand among friends and family members.
While inflation and crime are at the center of the national focus on how voters will decide who has the majority in the House and Senate this year, the drug epidemic is foremost on everyone’s mind here in Ohio.
“It is something that doesn’t care what neighborhood you are from or if you came from a city or a small town or what your background is, and it is killing families,” Vance said in an interview before the event.
Vance’s rival Ryan has the problem that he has been in office the entire time the drug crisis went from its infancy to a full-blown catastrophe. Vance has repeatedly attacked him, including in the recent debate, for being weak on border enforcement.
In Ohio, this could be what pulls Vance over the finish line in the election. But the problem of finding and enacting solutions is going to be more complicated, no matter who wins.
