Suburban, rural women in Ohio are guided to polls by motherhood

Bridgit Baum (right) sits with reporter Morgan Trau to discuss how being a mother is playing into her vote for president. (Photo by WEWS.)

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Both suburban and rural mothers in Ohio are being guided to the polls this year by the desire for a better future for their children.

“I always dreamed of having girls,” Bridget Baum said.

Baum, a mom of two, got her wish.

“It’s just really special raising two girls in this environment today,” she said in an interview with OCJ/WEWS on the couch of her sunroom.

She has been combining her daughters’ love for Taylor Swift and her love for democracy.

“A Harris/Walz friendship bracelet just feels like the best accessory this election season,” she laughed, bringing out dozens of handmade pieces of jewelry with sayings like, “We fight, we win,” and “Madame president.”

Baum lives in Pepper Pike, an affluent suburb outside of Cleveland.

Pepper Pike has about 6,800 residents, according to the U.S. Census. It routinely ranks in the top ten wealthiest cities in the state, with neighboring villages like Moreland Hills and Hunting Valley also up top. The median household income in Pepper Pike is about $200,000 compared to the state’s median of $65,000.

There is only one K-12 school in the area, Orange City School District, which has historically been one of the richest school districts in Ohio.

It is also a politically active town. Pepper Pike is a Democratic stronghold, with 83% of its voters choosing to protect abortion access in 2023.

Baum is one of the nearly 890,000 voters inside Cuyahoga County, the bluest area of the state. Sixty-six percent of voters chose President Joe Biden in 2020, and she hopes even more people vote for Vice President Kamala Harris this November.

Baum’s main focus is on ensuring abortion access.

“One thing about being a woman and having girls is that I want to make sure that they have the protections that I have always had,” Baum said.

She is excited to vote for Harris, but not just because of her support for reproductive health care.

“I care so much about public education — public services matter a lot to me, whether that’s Social Security, whether that’s taking care of women who have just had children, whether that’s child care being subsidized,” Baum said.

Even her friends who haven’t been involved in politics before are all putting up signs, donating to Democrats and speaking up about the importance of voting.

Baum said she credits all of this newfound action to reproductive rights.

“I think Roe being overturned was a major turning point, especially for suburban and all women,” she said.

White suburban women gave Trump an edge in 2016, but many flipped to former President Joe Biden in 2020, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

Baum thinks women are learning the dangers more and more as time goes on. Although she is fully behind and excited for Kamala, she is “terrified” of a Trump presidency, perhaps even more so than her excitement for the Democrats.

“I think that he’s speaking for a minority and that if we don’t keep him out of office, we face problems in our public education, in our health care, in our social services,” she said. “I don’t want my daughters to see a president who uses language like Trump uses, who disparages women, who looks down on women, who clearly does not care about people who are any different from himself.”

From city to country

It isn’t hard to find campaign signs in Cleveland. For suburban moms, decorating their lawns is a sense of activism — and it is for rural moms, too. You’ll just see different candidates in Wayne County.

“I just have to trust that the Lord’s got it under control,” Jess Beck said as a horse leading a buggy went by.

In the small village of West Salem, Beck’s teens are her world.

“You are always looking at the choices you make and how they affect your kids because they always affect your kids,” Beck said.

While sitting at a park near her home, the mom of three said she has faced it all — homelessness, hunger and the uncertainty of paying medical bills.

“I go to the grocery store and try to feed them and it’s rough,” the mom said. “You want to be able to provide them with a good life and it’s becoming extremely difficult to do that.”

West Salem has about 1,500 residents, according to the U.S. Census. The median household income is $61,000, lower than the state’s median of $65,000.

Wayne County has about 70,000 registered voters: 6% are Democrats, 27% are Republicans, and the remaining 67% are unaffiliated.

The county went 67% for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, but the West Salem precinct went 76% for Trump.

“I think everyone’s kind of burned out and just over a lot of this stuff and we want to get back to a good place,” Beck said. “The only candidate I’m seeing talk about that, really, is Trump.”

The main reason she is going to the polls is the economy — but it’s not the only one. She also wants more safety — in schools and at the Southern border.

“I’d like to see someone that can really come in and take charge and take care of some of this stuff for us, take some of that burden off of the American people so we can catch our breath,” she added.

The nation is sick right now, Beck said, especially with school shootings and violence impacting children. Her heart dropped when one of her teenage sons texted her that he had to evacuate his school due to a threat of an active shooter. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be credible, she said.

As a nurse, she also feels that the government pays too much attention to drug manufacturers and less to helping the average American have lower health care costs.

“I need insurance and to make sure I’m well,” she said. “I don’t feel like we have a good system in place for that.”

Part of her really wants to see a woman as president, she said, but that woman isn’t Harris.

“I’ve lived the last four years with her as the VP and I’m not seeing what I’d want to see in a woman president,” Beck said. “I’d want to see a woman come in there strong with a unified mind that wants to really make some changes — and I would have liked to see, as a VP, more of that from her.”

The disconnect

The true disconnect is shown by priorities: many suburban moms said reproductive health care was their priority — while all of the rural mothers said economy.

Beck understands why suburban moms would feel that way, she said. She wouldn’t get an abortion herself, but wants other women to have that choice. As a nurse, she cares about access to health care, but she said she has more pressing issues in her life.

“Your standing in life has a lot to do with that — if you are more on the side of having more money, you may not look at the economy as being rough and you may tilt towards those types of things being number one,” Beck said. “But I’m just a plain jane, regular old person. I don’t have hardly no money.”

Baum was also understanding but added that Harris’ plans would better support working mothers.

“They have to be honest with themselves about what a Trump presidency actually would do and not just assume that Kamala is going to be anti-economy,” Baum said. “You can look at her perspectives, her tax plans, her expectations of the economy and see that that can serve them as well.”

Despite their differences, it is clear that both mothers want what they think would be best for their kids.