… Nationally, about 100 counties voted Democratic in at least five consecutive presidential elections and then flipped to Trump. Almost half of them are in four states in the Upper Midwest: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Most of those nearly four dozen counties in the region are along or adjacent to the Mississippi River. …
This is a region of small towns and rural attitudes, populated by communities that have felt the devastating effects of deindustrialization. Some of these towns have never fully recovered from factories shuttered and jobs shipped overseas. People who went through those changes were particularly receptive to a Trump message focused on job losses, unfair trade agreements and the identity politics of insecure U.S. borders — all wrapped together with a broadside against the political classes of both parties. …
During the first 15 months of Trump’s presidency, The Washington Post traveled intermittently through this region, holding extended and sometimes repeated interviews with county party leaders and local elected officials or at random with citizens in coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores and other gathering points. What follows is not a scientific survey of the country. Instead, it is a story of how attitudes toward the president have changed gradually over time, told through the voices of a selection of people in a unique ecosystem of Trump Nation. CONT.
Dan Balz, Washington Post