Final pre-election push to boost ‘heartland’ US support for Ukraine proves difficult

October 26, 2024

By Ukraine

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PARMA, Ohio — After serving nearly three months in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, a unit within the country’s army comprised of fighters from abroad, Manus McCaffery is known as a hometown hero in Parma, Ohio, home to one of the largest diaspora communities in the U.S. with roots from Ukraine.

Months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in 2022, the now 23-year-old U.S. veteran was wounded in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast. He dedicated the subsequent years to another way of supporting Ukraine – by fundraising for its armed forces in Parma.

As part of his mission to expand support for Ukraine among fellow Ohio conservatives, McCaffery joined a discussion organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Parma this October, less than a month from the U.S. presidential election.

The event was part of the fund’s “Whistlestops for Ukraine” tour, a year-long effort to rally support for Kyiv.

Yet even McCaffery himself is torn over how he will vote in the Nov. 5 election: for the status quo in terms of U.S. backing for Ukraine, namely President Joe Biden's Vice President Kamala Harris on the Democratic Party ticket, or Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has openly questioned further allyship with Kyiv and has a history of fancy for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m extremely uncertain, it’s tough because I want to balance what I think is best for America, but also, in a lot of ways, I'm a one-issue person because I care about Ukraine so much,” McCaffery told the Kyiv Independent.

It would have been easier, he added, for him to vote for Biden over Harris, who he says is too progressive on domestic issues. The veteran of Ukraine and U.S. armed services said his vote would be a last-minute decision.

With the U.S. presidential election days away and 40% of Trump supporters saying Washington should “reconsider” its level of backing for Ukraine, the Ohio stop showed how challenging the German Marshall Fund’s mission of increasing support for Ukraine is.

`‘Whistlestops for Ukraine’ tour`

Since last November, the German Marshall Fund, a Washington-based research group that promotes democracy, has visited eight “heartland” U.S. states in a public diplomacy initiative dubbed “Whistlestops for Ukraine.”

The tour has primarily focused on Democratic city centers surrounded by conservative rural areas and ideologically diverse suburbs like Denver, Colorado, Des Moines, Iowa, and Erie, Pennsylvania.

Heather Conley, a senior advisor to the German Marshall Fund’s board who led the tour, described each stop on the tour as a “unique set of conversations and meetings” that involve outreach to community business leaders and farming communities.

The tour had previously included the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova. But as the topic of aid to Ukraine has become increasingly politicized in the past months, she was absent from the most recent stop in Ohio.

Republican Mike Johnson, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a close Trump ally, openly called this autumn for Volodymyr Zelensky to fire Markarova after the Ukrainian president’s recent visit to a Pennsylvania artillery ammunition factory producing weaponry for his armed forces. The state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, attended the visit, but there was no representation from the Republican Party.

Conley said Markarova wasn’t part of the Ohio stop due to the sensitivity of Ukraine’s topic so close to the U.S. election.

“After Zelensky’s visit to the U.S., (the Ukrainian Embassy) wanted to be, understandably, more cautious,” Conley said.

`Expanding Republican support`

The German Marshall Fund’s last stop before the election and second to last overall comprised one day of engagements in northeast Ohio.

Once a swing state, Ohio has reliably voted Republican since 2016. It is also home to the Republican party’s Ukraine-skeptical vice presidential nominee JD Vance and nearly 12 million voters, offering a ripe electorate to expand conservative support of Ukraine.

Around 60,000 Ukrainians live in the state, including nearly 10,000 who have relocated since Russis’a full-scale invasion, according to Global Cleveland.

The German Marshall Fund’s Ohio visit included a tour of a Ukrainian daycare, a roundtable with local Ukrainian and religious leaders, and a conversation with local U.S. veterans.

With the largest concentration of Ukrainians in northeast Ohio, the whistlestop had no problem finding passionate defenders of Ukraine’s sovereignty. However, some attendees said many voters in Parma are hesitant to support Ukraine.

One Parma resident, who is known locally for being an outspoken Republican for Ukraine, said he will “begrudgingly have to vote for Trump” because of the economy, despite believing “Ukraine is screwed with a Trump administration.”

The Republican voter, who like others spoke to the Kyiv Independent on the condition of anonymity for privacy concerns, said his support of Ukraine’s independence is a conflicting issue for his vote, as he wishes a pro-Ukraine Republican like Nikki Haley, the Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, was on the ticket.

Trump has repeatedly claimed he would end Russia’s war in 24 hours, without going into details about how he is planning to achieve that. Due to his consistent criticism of U.S. aid to Ukraine and friendly ties with the Kremlin, many fear that Trump’s plan may involve forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions and agree to a peace deal on unfair terms.

Yet even some Ukrainians in Parma appear to have bought into Trump’s message that he will end the war immediately should he be elected in November, earning the 78-year-old their vote.

“I talk to a lot of Ukrainians who support Trump and it almost feels like there is a bit of cognitive dissonance because they support Ukraine but they also support Trump,” said Andriy Boechko, a Parma resident who moved from Lviv, western Ukraine, in the 1990s.

The 37-year-old registered independent says he’ll vote for Harris as he believes Ukraine will be better off with her in office than Trump.

“I like to keep an open mind, but I’m not a Trump supporter, definitely not, especially as far as Ukraine is concerned, I’m a little worried about what’s going to happen if he’s elected,” Boechko said. “The most important issue is foreign policy, and I think Democrats have a better grasp on that.”

`An American boon`

Like in other states across the U.S. that benefit from aid for Ukraine, the connection between the Biden Administration’s foreign policy and local economic growth along with new jobs doesn’t seem evident in Ohio.

Of the $175 billion Congress has allocated for Kyiv since 2022, nearly $70 billion was poured into American manufacturing in over 70 U.S. cities, according to one analysis.

Over $700 million of that sum was spent on the manufacturing economy of Ohio.

Dozens of Stryker combat vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks have rolled off an Army-owned General Dynamics production line in Lima, Ohio before being sent to Kyiv. Ukraine has also received Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) produced by General Dynamics in Springboro, Ohio.

Despite that, Lima’s Republican representative, Jim Jordan, like Trump’s running mate Vance, opposes aid to Ukraine.

According to Boechko, the Biden Administration could expand voters’ support of Ukraine if they better communicated that not all of the money the U.S. spends on aiding Ukraine goes directly to Ukraine.

Parma’s Democratic Mayor, Tim DeGeeter, argued that the middle of the country doesn’t trust Washington during an election season. DeGeeter, who boasts a Ukrainian flag outside city hall, asked Conley of the German Marshall Fund to help get the message out to Ohioans that supporting Ukraine is an American boon.

“Even though that war is 5,000 plus miles away, it's very close to all for us here in Parma,” DeGeeter said.

The German Marshall Fund observed a similar lack of understanding of how aid for Ukraine benefits American communities during one of their previous stops in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Erie is home to Vorex LLC and Logistics Plus, which have been expanding the local manufacturing economy by providing Ukraine with bulletproof vests and generators, respectively. According to Conley, Erie's businesses are “critical players in America's support for Ukraine.”

The fund’s events in Erie in May mostly attracted voters who already supported Ukraine, according to attendee Ashley Lawson, who has helped settle hundreds of Ukrainians in northwest Pennsylvania as a field director with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

“Erie is a perfect example of a city that is critical to U.S. foreign and security policy every day — they just might not realize it,” Conley said.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, Parma Mayor DeGeeter remains hopeful the large Ukrainian population will turn out in opposition to the Republican party, which has dominated most Ohio counties excluding those home to major metropolitan areas.

“The alternative (to a Harris White House), candidate Trump, is basically saying ‘give up land and territory, that’s how we can end this war,’” DeGeeter said. “Well, that’s kind of the goal of Putin, that’s not a shared objective.”

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