Chris Gagin says he hasn’t changed much politically, even as so much around him has.The attorney from rural Belmont County, Ohio, became a Republican in 2013 after Democrats embraced environmental policies that he believed were detrimental to the area’s coal mining and fracking industries. As an anti-abortion-rights, pro-gun conservative, he felt unwelcome.“Conservative Democrats have become all but extinct,” said Gagin, who served for a time as county Republican chairman. He’s among many former Democrats in blue-collar Ohio who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and for an all-GOP statewide ticket last year. Those ballots helped turn large swaths of territory …read more
Source:: Voice of America
