In Ohio, Trump faithful believe new Clinton emails will lift their man

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Jennie Stevens heard it from her friend, who heard it from her husband, who heard it on Rush Limbaugh and called with the bulletin: The FBI was investigating more emails related to Hillary Clinton's private server.

"This is the October surprise," Stevens said Friday afternoon, wearing a "Hillary for Prison 2016" T-shirt as she did a kind of touchdown dance at Clark County Republican headquarters. It seemed just the break Donald Trump needed.

"I believe in my heart and soul we're going to see a 1980, when Ronald Reagan surged at the end. Americans have had it," she said. "We want our nation back."

To be a fervent Trump backer over the past few weeks often has meant walking by faith and not by sight. The Republican presidential nominee, beset by women accusing him of sexual assault, fell behind Clinton in national and battleground state polls, and he painted a dark picture of a "rigged system" that would deprive him of his rightful victory.

A visit at the end of last week to this city in southwest Ohio, where Trump held a boisterous rally Thursday, found supporters stout in the belief he would win. They cited the huge crowds the businessman continues to draw, Trump yard signs outnumbering Clinton ones around Clark County, the belief that polls are missing millions of silent Trump backers.

At the same time, some expressed wariness about potential election fraud, or the power of the special interests who could carry Clinton to the win; a few forecast unrest if Trump did not win.

"How can it be close?" said John Hopfinger, 39, a retired Army veteran from Westerville. "I go through my neighborhood, and I see 'Trump' signs everywhere, and maybe one or two 'Hillary' signs."

One thing does give him pause. "Hillary has a lot of money behind her; that's the problem," Hopfinger said. "All these rich people and lobbyists that want her to do something for them. So I'm not sure. In my opinion, she shouldn't have been allowed to run with her record."

The impact of the email bombshell is so far unclear. Most "game-changing" revelations in presidential campaigns fade pretty quickly, though the timing couldn't have been much worse for Clinton, coming just days before the vote.

FBI Director James Comey told Congress that agents had found the emails on a computer shared by former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, under investigation for allegedly sending explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl, and his estranged wife Huma Abedin, one of Hillary Clinton's closest aides. They have not been examined yet so it's unknown if the Abedin emails on the laptop are classified or even relevant to the probe into Clinton's use of a private email system as secretary of state.

Regardless, opinions of the two candidates are carved in granite for most voters. A new CBS poll of 13 battleground states found 71 percent of respondents saying the news had no impact on how they'd vote. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows about two-thirds of voters say the issue will make "no difference" to their decisions, adding it "may do more to reinforce preferences of voters opposed to Clinton than swing undecided voters."

Even if the polls tighten, the electoral map seems to hold dwindling options for Trump to win. Ohio, with 18 electoral votes, is essential.

While Trump is running well in industrial areas ranging from western and northeastern Pennsylvania to northern Wisconsin, those states appear to be slipping out of reach as he falls short in the populous, affluent suburbs Republicans need to win statewide.

In Ohio, a state with a high percentage of white voters without college degrees - Trump's blue-collar base - he still has a narrow lead. Polls show him overperforming most Republicans in battered industrialized places such as Toledo's Lucas County, as well as in Lorain and Mahoning counties, two traditional Democratic strongholds.

Clark County, between Columbus and Dayton, has been inching Republican but remains one of Ohio's true battlegrounds. County voters split their votes almost equally between the two major parties' candidates in the past four presidential elections.

So it was a natural spot for Trump to throw a rally, which drew about 7,000 people to a drafty horse-show barn at the Clark County Fairgrounds. It had the noise and us-vs.-them edginess of most Trump rallies. Consider the campaign's pre-rally playlist, which included the anthem from Les Miserables: "Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men. It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again. . . . "

In the invocation, Pastor Donovan Larkins of Dayton asked God's help in breaking "every demonic power that is arrayed against us in this election. We bring our candidate, Donald J. Trump, before you and ask that you pour the blood of Jesus over him - for protection, for strength, for wisdom, and for victory. . . . We pray that every media outlet would . . . report the truth. In the name of Jesus, Amen."

Stevens, the Trump volunteer, sat near the front. To her it looked as if Trump's eyes were watering with emotion as he stood behind the lectern. "Think about what that must be like, people crying out to him, 'Save us, save us.' He can't save us, he's a mere mortal man, but I believe his heart is in the right place."

Janet Adams, 58, cannot imagine how Trump could be denied. "He is down-to-earth, not a king, or a skunk like Hillary," Adams, who takes care of her granddaughter so her daughter and son-in-law can work.

A Clinton victory could send her to the barricades, Adams said. "We'll go into another Revolutionary War. There are pockets of real anger out there."

Tom Large, a 71-year-old Vietnam veteran - he was a member of the Air Force's elite Pararescue special-operations unit - expects more twists and turns in the few days left in the campaign.

He's convinced that billionaire liberal donor George Soros owns a company that makes voting machines in 16 states. This alleged conspiracy, spread on several right-wing websites, has been debunked.

"I fear for my country if Hillary wins," Large said. "I truly fear. It's not going to be pretty. You talk to people, and they're scared."

Few can match Donna "Sarge" Fry in devotion to Trump - she works for him several days a week at the Clark County GOP - but she does not share others' apocalyptic view of a possible Clinton victory.

"If we don't win, that doesn't mean I don't trust our God," Fry said. "So if it happens, that means there's another plan. You have to accept it. It's a fact, at that point. . . .. My sincere feeling is I place my trust in Jesus Christ. Nothing or nobody can take that away from me."

And Lynne Wilson, 53, a member of Sarge's volunteer posse at GOP headquarters, doesn't think she will have to accept a President Hillary Clinton. Trump has more support than it seems, she said.

"I don't believe the polls in general," said Wilson, a retired registered nurse. "We've got a lot of left-wing media in this country, and their polls are talking to too many Democrats."

tfitzgerald@phillynews.com 215-854-2718 @tomfitzgerald www.philly.com/bigtent