COLUMBUS — President Donald Trump is headed back to Ohio to promote his plans to rebuild and repair the nation’s roads and bridges.
The Republican president travels to Richfield, in the northeast part of the state, Thursday. The village sits about halfway between Cleveland and Akron.
Protesters will greet Trump when he arrives at the Ohio Operating Engineers Apprenticeship and Training site on Newton Road, despite polls showing the president is still popular among a significant minority of Ohio voters.
It will be his second time pitching the plan in the bellwether state that he won handily in 2016 with 52 percent of the vote. He remains quite popular among Republicans, with a 75 percent approval rating, according to a January poll by the Cincinnati Enquirer. But overall, 52 percent of Ohioans say they disapproved of the job Trump was doing after one year in the White House.
Trump is promoting his ‘Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America’, which was announced last month.
The $1.5 trillion package was not received well in Congress following its announcement, partly due to its plans for the federal govt to contribute just $200 billion of the spending, which is intended to leverage more than $1 trillion in state, local and private funding.
Trump also touted the infrastructure investments during a visit to Cincinnati in June.
Community members and local groups will rally outside of the Richfield event to voice their opposition to the plan, which they say would shift the burden to local communities and privatize the infrastructure.