What I Saw and Heard in Vance Country

People in Meigs County, Ohio, though polite, do not like to talk to strangers, which may be why election polling here is often inaccurate. To hear their candid views, you need to be someone they already trust, or with someone they do, in my case a college friend originally from this part of southeast Ohio. I had seen New York City on this same trip, and wanted to see some of the rest of the country.

Meigs is considered by many to be the northwestern fringe of Appalachia—not a hard argument to make. Many people live on farms, as their Scotch-Irish immigrant ancestors have for the last 200 years. The farms are far apart. Everyone is connected to one of the tiny towns in the area by old land surveys, modern tax collection, regional high schools, or by the church they drive in to attend.

The soil is not bad, though rocky in places, and farming is encumbered by hills. Summer is hot and humid, but the intermittent rain makes it easy to grow fruits and vegetables. People live off that in large part, selling to wholesalers and in small stands erected close to the main road. Signs were advertising cucumbers and sweet corn when I was there, so fresh they’d make Trader Joe himself blush. Many families also make crafts and raise bees for honey, which they sell to tourists who drive out from Columbus for a day in the country. The best local stuff, however, is offered by the area’s small Amish community. The Amish are shy, and you generally only know you’re in their neighborhood when you start to see the yellow and black “horse and buggy” caution signs.

This place feels as far away from New York City as one can get without time travel. The people out here voted Trump into office twice—“three times,” they’ll say with a chuckle—because they felt abandoned by the pre-Trump, city-dwelling elites. Folks are worried but not terribly concerned about the latest Mideast war. Every town has war memorials, many displayed at high schools and showing the names of local boys lost. They have gotten through that before and expect to do so again. The military is revered because it is one of the few government institutions they believe still sees them. They know Trump didn’t always tell them the truth, but he did speak directly to them, and that counted.

They like Vice President J.D. Vance but remain a little unsure. His roots are from the right place, however, and that matters around here. The possibility of anyone I spoke with voting for a democratic socialist is roughly the same as their voting to shut down the Dairy Queen in July. According to one source, Meigs County is around 79 percent Republican; more importantly, 71 percent of adults typically vote, solidly above the U.S. average. The Democrats should take note as they try to retake Ohio in this year’s elections.

Many in the area rely on food stamps. Yet people tend to see their benefits as deserved, since most work and pay taxes, unlike the way they see the people in big cities, who they think depend on the same assistance across multiple generations. It takes little more than a bottle of beer to hear anecdotes suggesting this perspective is racially tinged, as is locals’ view of democratic socialism. Public opinion here is still shaped by local daytime conservative talk radio shows listened to in the truck. Being here you understand that the jumbled beliefs people hold do not always make sense—but they vote based on those beliefs, whether you find them logical or not.

You sadly cannot talk about rural America anymore without talking about drugs. The Ohio Department of Health says Meigs County struggles with a high rate of drug overdose deaths, mostly due to fentanyl and meth. The county is one of the harder-hit areas of the state: In 2023, it recorded an age-adjusted unintentional drug overdose death rate of 94 deaths per 100,000 people. No one I spoke with admitted to any drug use or knowing anyone who used or sold drugs, but it is telling that there are 13 listed drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers in or around nearby Pomeroy, a town of only 1,573 people. It is easier some days not to try getting back on your feet.

This was not my first trip to this area. I went to high school and college in various parts of Ohio, and think I know these folks. I wrote a book about southern Ohio that was published long before Hillbilly Elegy came along. So I know more than to traffic in clichés about rural America, the meth, the uneducated adults with no teeth who went Republican because they hated the color of Obama’s skin. This place and its people are much too complex to be reduced to fodder for the Trump-era culture war.

After the elections in November, Meigs County will still be here. Most of its children will stay put as they grow older, while the political reporters who parachuted in will move on to the next election and the next town that supposedly explains America. Meanwhile, the distance between places like this and New York will grow.

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