A Fox News poll showed Biden up by 5 points today in Ohio. What would that look like? Well, it would almost certainly require big improvements from 2016 in Ohio’s 13th district, today’s #DistrictOfTheDay. This area swung hard to the right for Donald Trump four years ago.

Northeast Ohio has a long history of blue-collar Democratic strength, especially in the Mahoning Valley. It’s also known for producing one of the strangest members of Congress in the last 40 years: James Traficant, whose behavior was so bad he was expelled from the House in 2002.

Traficant (a Dem) had one of the largest personalities of anyone ever elected to Congress. Eventually, charges of racketeering, bribery, tax fraud, and forcing his congressional staff to perform household chores made him only the fifth person ever booted out of the chamber.

In 2002, Traficant attempted another run in the old OH-17 (now OH-13 due to population loss post-2010). Traficant ran as an independent that year even after his expulsion, getting a remarkable 15% of the vote. Still, it wasn’t enough to win, which Democrat Tim Ryan (D–Niles) did.

When Ohio was redistricted after 2010, Republicans immediately moved to consolidate the Democratic areas into one solidly blue district. Demonstrating how poorly Hillary did in OH, Republicans came quite close here in 2016 – she won OH-13 by just 6.5 (Obama won it by 27.5).

Down-ballot, though, it remains solidly Democratic. Ryan got 61% of the vote here in 2018, buoyed in particular by strength in Mahoning County (home to industrial Youngstown) and Summit County (home to Akron). The Summit County portion is extremely gerrymandered.

Nobody ever really thought Trump would win this district, but for a while there was some consideration he might keep it close. Now, it looks like it will make a swing back left for Biden, who is the Democrats’ ideal candidate for this 83% white and very working-class district.

Democrats rely on a lot of groups to carry them to victory in national elections—African Americans, Hispanics, LGBT+, women, young voters, etc.—but organized labor remains a crucial component of their Midwestern strategy. Fortunately, Biden seems to get that.