Nearly 1,400 workers at a former Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio lost their jobs Wednesday, just three days before President Trump’s nearby midterm rally.
The cuts hit what had been the Navistar truck plant in the greater Dayton area, the New York Post reported, as International Motors offloaded the facility and Canadian armored-vehicle maker Roshel moved to buy it.
The layoffs were large enough to wipe out roughly a full year of job growth across the Dayton region. President Donald Trump is set to hold a rally Saturday at a nearby high school as he campaigns through the final stretch before the November election.
Roshel said it is not walking away from the workforce. In a statement, the company said it is “working with everyone involved not only to protect the current workforce, but to more than double it over the coming years through a phased process.”
Laid-off workers say they expect possible rehiring in six to 12 months under the new owner. That promise will be tested against grocery bills, mortgage payments, and a plant floor that suddenly went quiet.
Kyle Bos, 30, a United Auto Workers member with two daughters and a third child due in January, described a life that changed overnight. He sat with co-workers drinking tea from beer mugs and listed what the pink slips mean at home.
Bos said five grocery items now cost what a full cart once did. He has voted for Trump three times. Asked how many, he held up three tattooed fingers, and said he is done with the president. He plans to spend the final weeks before the November election canvassing for Democrats.
“Something has to change politically in this country. Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.”
On Trump’s pledge to send $5,000 checks if Republicans win the House and Senate next month, Bos did not hold back.
“It feels like a bribe, a slap in the face, and, like, that we’re all ignorant.”
Marianne Donnelly drove a forklift at the plant. She now buys marked-down beef, pork, and chicken and packs them into her freezer. She canceled newspaper subscriptions and streaming services. Overtime, she said, had already dried up.
“We weren’t getting a lot of overtime because of the economy. There just wasn’t any to be had, very little to be had.”
Morgan Hughes, 35, another union member, said the Navistar job helped her buy a house at 21 and work alongside her father. When hours were first cut, she took DoorDash runs and earned a real estate license. On the Monday before the layoffs, she and JoJo Burkhard knocked on doors in Kettering, a Dayton suburb, urging union members and retirees to back Democrats.
Burkhard said the layoffs left her, her boyfriend, and her mother without work. After canvassing, the two stopped at a Chinese restaurant. Burkhard opened a fortune cookie that read, “You’ll find your inner strength to overcome challenges,” and tears welled up.
“It isn’t a hard pitch at all. And even if they don’t want to stay Democratic long-term, they’ll at least give the candidates a chance this election, which could be a turning point for us.”
International Motors chose to offload the facility. Reporting on the cuts tied weak demand at the plant to broad tariffs that did not lift orders there. Roshel’s purchase is now the path workers are watching for a return to the floor.
The hit lands on a region that has already taken decades of punishment. Federal data cited in the reporting show the Dayton area has shed about half of its 90,000 factory jobs since 1990, a slide that tracked the North American Free Trade Agreement and China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.
Dayton itself counts about 137,000 residents. Downtown has added lofts. The historic Dayton Arcade, glass dome, mosaic floors, has been renovated into shops, a gallery, and restaurants. That polish does not replace a truck line.
Other pieces of the local economy have moved the other way. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base now directly employs 38,000 people. Aerospace names drawn to the area include Joby Aviation, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and Electra.
Jeff Hoagland, CEO of the Dayton Development Coalition, said the turnaround is real but slow.
“In economic development, it takes time, and you have got to give it a little bit of time to bake, and then once it does, then you’re going to have something special.”
On Thursday, speaking at a truck plant in Texas, Trump rejected the idea that manufacturing is slipping.
“All over the country, they’re building factories, plants, manufacturing’s coming back. The only thing we’re doing badly at is public relations.”
The White House pointed to Electra’s $850 million investment and to Ohio announcements from Honda, Stellantis, and others as proof the president’s policies are creating jobs. It also said Trump’s tax cuts and trade deals have helped Ohio.
Trump’s major legislative package temporarily stripped taxes from tips and overtime. He has promised $5,000 checks if Republicans keep the House and Senate next month and has described a 32-day marathon of rallies into the election.
Polling cited in the same reporting found only 17% of Americans approve of his handling of the cost of living, a number Democrats are eager to use in factory towns.
Republican Sen. Jon Husted faces a challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is trying to climb back two years after losing his seat and is working to harness voter frustration.
In the statehouse fight, Democrat Rose Lounsbury, a former schoolteacher running again for state representative, held a Monday fundraiser at the Dayton Arcade gallery.
“There is a gap between what people want and what they feel is available. People don’t want to live a life of subsistence. They want to live the middle-class dream and they feel it’s not available like it once was.”
Her Republican opponent, State Rep. Andrea White, spent the past week in Columbus helping lead a push for a temporary suspension of Ohio’s 38.5-cents-per-gallon gas tax. She framed the move as direct relief.
“The concept is, put it back in the hands of the people who pay the taxes, so they have more of their own money.”
White also said the Republican-led state government has cushioned inflation by flattening the state income tax and reining in property tax hikes, pocketbook steps aimed at the same voters now staring at layoff notices.
Montgomery County Republican chairman Phil Plummer, a state representative since 2019 and now running for the Ohio Senate, entered politics after the 2008 financial crisis. He has argued Trump remains the glue for the GOP’s coalition of businesses and working-class families. His path to the Statehouse started in a county jail he once ran as sheriff.
“My jail was 40% drug addicts, 50% mental health patients, 10% criminals. We got it upside down, that’s what drove me to the state house.”
Saturday’s Trump rally will sit three days after the Wednesday cuts and minutes from the plant gate in political terms. Democrats are already door-knocking the same neighborhoods. Republicans are betting tax relief, trade reset, and new aerospace and defense work will show up in paychecks before voters draft off the recovery.
Roshel says it wants to protect the current crew and more than double it through a phased buildup. Workers like Donnelly are counting on a six- to 12-month return. Bos is canvassing the other way. The factory’s last chapter under International Motors closed with nearly 1,400 badges set down at once.
Factory towns do not heal on a press release. They heal when the line runs again, and when the people who built this country can fill a grocery cart without doing the math twice.
