Trouble In Trump Country-- The Reverse Midas Touch In Ohio And Iowa

You probably never heard of Brook Park, Ohio unless you live in the Cleveland area. It's a Cleveland suburb with less than 20,000 people. Or maybe you remember it from last year because the mayor, Tom Coyne-- who was in office from 1982 through 2001 and again from 2013 'til... well Tuesday-- left the Democratic Party to pledge his allegiance to Señor Trumpanzee during the election campaign. He was defeated in his reelection bid this week, running as a Trumpist, by former Brook Park council president Michael Gammella, a United Auto Works rep.

A few weeks ago Trumpanzee, Jr.-- plagued by revelations about his collusion with the Kremlin-- cancelled a fundraiser for Coyne. Results from the 4-man race:

• Michael Gammella: 42.92%
• Thomas Coyne: 37.59%
• Tom Colburn: 10.09%
• Jan Powers: 9.41%

Coyne has told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer that "What's happening is the Republican Party is getting transformed like the old Reagan Democrats, and that's who I represent." And that accounted for almost 38% of the vote-- but without an electoral college, that's not enough to elect anyone to anything.



Getting rid of Coyne wasn't that tough. Getting rid of Rod Blum in Iowa will be a lot tougher. His congressional district in Iowa was once safely blue. In 2015 the PVI was D+5. Obama won it against McCain 58-40% and against Romney 56-42%. But Hillary and her establishment status quo message was as wrong as anything for the district. Among the 20 counties in IA-01, the most votes come out of Linn and Black Hawk, both of which were won by Bernie in the caucuses. When the General Election rolled around, the district flipped from blue to red, Trump beating Hillary 48.7% to 45.2%. To make matters worse, the DCCC put up a wealthy conservative Republican, Monica Vernon, pretending to be a Democrat and Blum crushed her 206,903 (53.7%) to 177,403 (46.1%). There are 160,513 registered Democrats, 142,879 registered Republicans and 187,783 voters who refused to pick between the two corrupt parties.

This cycle, there are 4 candidates so far, Abby Finkenauer (the EMILY's List recruit), Thomas Heckroth, Courtney Rowe and George Ramsey. Now look at the brand new polling from PPP below. Voters aren't that familiar with the Democratic candidates polled-- Heckroth and Finkenauer-- but either looks like they could be a serious contender against Blum, who IA-01 voters are ready to jettison... along with Trump.