Trump 4% ahead in Ohio. Must be time for the Guardian to repeat its Ohio don’t vote for the Republican stunt
The above sets out what turned out to be a misguided attempt by the Guardian ahead of the 2004 Bush Kerry fight to involve its UK readers more closely in the contest.
This was in the year after the Iraq war and the paper sought to get readers to write and email to US voters in Clark County in Ohio to express their feelings about the race which, as you can imagine, were strongly anti-Bush. 11k Guardian readers took and the above sets out the response of Americans to being advised by Brits on how they should vote.
In the end Ohio went with Bush again with a pro-Bush swing in Clark county itself. Given how crucial Ohio was in that election it was suggested that the “Guardian effect” had helped keep the White House in the Republican camp. Who knows?
In many ways the response of US voters was similar to how Obama’s intervention in the BREXIT referendum went down a few months ago. We don’t like outsiders interfering.
So even though Trump appears for the moment to have the edge on Ohio I doubt if there will be a repetition by the paper.