Tony Cook, Chelsea Schneider, Stephanie Wang, and Brian Eason

IndyStar

A key demographic has emerged in the 2016 presidential race: the disaffected blue-collar voter.

Those voters could play an even bigger role in Indiana’s critical Tuesday primary than they have elsewhere. The reason: They make up a huge percentage of the state’s workforce.

Around the country, this group is widely given credit for the success of national Republican front-runner Donald Trump and the resilience of Democrat Bernie Sanders. But they could have an outsized impact in Indiana because it is the most manufacturing-intensive state in the nation by any measure.

More than half a million Hoosiers work in factories and plants, making up about 17 percent of the state’s workforce and 30 percent of its gross domestic product, according to the National Manufacturers Association.

It’s a group that has experienced volatile economic swings over the past decade, prompting deep worries about job security and anger at politicians on both sides of the aisle.

And it’s a voting bloc large enough to sway the outcome of an election.

The group could have an especially large impact on the Republican side, where Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz are locked in a fierce battle.

Indiana has emerged as a must-win state for Cruz and other Republicans who want to stop Trump from locking up the nomination. But Trump’s brash brand of populism resonates with voters who are concerned about things like factory closings and outsourcing, experts say.

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Still, the voting behavior of these newly energized voters can be hard to predict, especially taking into account that some of them are also part of the state's large evangelical community that experts say tend to favor Cruz.

“Within the GOP, there is certainly evidence that economic anxiety is correlated with support for Trump — and may even cause people to support him,” said John Sides, an associate professor at George Washington University who studies political behavior.

Trump support amid industrial decline

That could be an especially potent factor in parts of the state where residents have witnessed years of industrial decline — places like Connersville, a town of about 13,000 about 65 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

Once known as “Little Detroit” because of its robust auto manufacturing industry, it has been ravaged by decades of layoffs and plant closures.

"We've lost a lot," resident Jack Lakes said as he ticked off a list of plants that have been shuttered. “It’s easy to get depressed if you think about the way things used to be compared to the way they are now.”

Lakes worked for 43 years at Dresser Roots, one of Connersville’s remaining manufacturing plants. A lifelong member of the United Auto Workers, he has always leaned Democratic. Now, he and his wife are supporting Trump.

“I think that Trump with his business mind is going to be more effective and get better deals for the United States on the trade issues than anyone you can show me,” he said.

It’s a sentiment all too familiar to Fayette County Republican Party Chairman Sam Harvey. He personally supports Cruz, but acknowledged Trump probably has more support in the area.

“Blue-collar people like Trump because he’s against these trade deals,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of blue-collar people here in town say that they’re supporting Trump.”

It’s an appeal that Trump has carefully cultivated.

During a rally at the Indiana State Fairgrounds last week, he promised to “tax the hell” out of companies that move jobs out of the country. He has blasted air-conditioner maker Carrier Corp. for months because of the company’s decision to lay off 1,400 workers in Indianapolis and move production to Mexico. And he has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration with mass deportations and a wall along the country’s southern border.

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Critics have questioned the feasibility of those plans and some such as Indiana Republican National Committeeman John Hammond have accused Trump of pandering to “nationalistic instincts” and “nativist fears.”

But Lakes and other supporters say they don’t mind Trump’s rhetoric. In fact, it’s a major part of the appeal.

“I’m so sick of political correctness,” he said. “I’ve noticed when I’m talking to these ultra-liberals, if you don’t agree with them, then at that point in time for whatever reason you become intellectually inferior to them. And that just burns my ass, to be truthful.”

Trump's message is resonating in many other parts of the state, too.

In the industrial northwest — home to cities like Gary, East Chicago and Hammond — support is strong for Trump, said Chuck Williams, chairman of the area's congressional district.

"There is certainly more support for Trump here than in other parts of the state," he said.

Even amid a Clinton campaign visit to Munster Steel Co. in Hammond on Tuesday, employee Lukas Mitcheltree said he was considering supporting Trump.

“(Trump is) talking about how he wanted to tax all the companies producing stuff in China and make more jobs here,” said Mitcheltree, 20, of Crown Point. “That’s the only (issue) that really concerns me to be honest.”

On the opposite end of the state in Evansville, where 1,200 workers lost their jobs at a Whirlpool Corp. factory in 2010, Trump drew about 12,000 supporters to a rally. After the event, hundreds of Trump devotees followed him to the local airport to watch him depart in his black and gold Boeing 757.

Evansville resident Ashlee Mercer and her 8-year-old son were among them.

“My husband lost his job to Mexico from Whirlpool,” she said. Such outsourcing is a sign of American weakness, she said.

“I think in the United States of America we worry too much about other countries and less about our own,” she said. “We worry about the homeless, the people who don’t have food in other countries — when, you know what? There’s plenty of homeless here in Evansville.”

Cruz targets another demographic

Cruz isn’t ignoring Trump’s message on trade and the economy. Instead, he is trying to turn it against him.

"Donald has a long history of threatening government retaliation against any company that moves jobs overseas — exactly like Obama and Hillary do,” Cruz said during a recent Indiana campaign stop. “I think that's exactly backward. It is a tragedy that Carrier is moving so many jobs to Mexico, but it is responding to the disaster that is the Obama-Clinton economy. It is the federal government that has driven Carrier out of Indiana and is driving jobs away from America all across this country.”

It’s not clear how much that message is resonating with blue-collar workers. But that’s not necessarily the demographic Cruz is targeting.

To beat Trump, he is seeking to replicate wins in places like Iowa and Wisconsin. Those states also have large percentages of manufacturing workers — Wisconsin is No. 2 behind Indiana and Iowa is No. 4. But the key to his victory in those states was his ability to turn out evangelical Christians.

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In Iowa, for example, the Cruz campaign had phone banks with 40 lines that made 12,000 contacts a day, said Ann Selzer, a longtime pollster in the state.

"In Iowa that’s a lot," she said. "There was a lot more effort in the hand-to-hand combat and targeting evangelicals."

Indiana could be ripe for such a strategy. More than 30 percent of Hoosiers adults identify as evangelical Protestants, according a Pew Research Center survey. That's more than in Iowa or Wisconsin. It's also the highest share of evangelicals of any state that has a primary during the last three months of the race, said David Wasserman, a political analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report in Washington D.C.

Cruz is pitching hard to those voters.

He is taking Trump to task on social issues, such as Trump’s recent statement that transgender people should be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.

"It doesn’t make any sense at all to let grown adult men, strangers, to be alone in bathrooms with little girls," Cruz said during a recent rally. "If Donald Trump dresses up as Hillary Clinton, he still can’t use the little girls’ restroom!"

Cruz is getting help from other groups, too. National Right to Life launched $70,000 in radio ads supporting Cruz, a staunch opponent of abortion.

“Unborn babies can’t vote,” the ad says, “but you can.”

And on Friday, Cruz received the endorsement of Gov. Mike Pence, a staunch social conservative who has stirred national controversies over abortion restrictions and a religious objections law.

Poll results in the volatile race between Cruz and Trump in Indiana have been a bit erratic. Two recent polls provided to IndyStar give Trump a slight edge. But a poll released this weekend gives Cruz a 16-point advantage.

However, 13 percent of Hoosier voters surveyed in that poll said they are undecided — and, paired with a 4.9 percent margin of error, that could still put the candidates in a neck-and-neck race.

It’s still too early to tell if Cruz's focus on religious conservatives will give him a critical victory in Indiana. But recent poll results suggest he is making inroads.

A Fox News poll last week found that white evangelical voters in Indiana were nearly evenly divided between Cruz and Trump. But a poll released this weekend by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics showed that 44 percent of Hoosiers who attend church weekly support Cruz, compared to 27 percent for Trump.

“The evangelical vote really should be going to Cruz. I think what we are seeing is the confluence of religion and economic interests,” Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics, said.

A big deal for Democrats, too

Candidates on the Democratic side are also sparring over trade and manufacturing issues.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is nearing the number of delegates she needs to secure the nomination. In Indiana, polling in her race with Sanders has been mixed.

Two polls last week showed them in a statistical dead heat. But the Downs poll released this weekend showed Clinton leading Sanders, 55 percent to 40.3 percent, with 4.8 percent of voters undecided.

While Clinton enjoys broad support from organized labor, Sanders landed a high-profile endorsement in Indianapolis from the union that represents Carrier employees. He joined them on the steps of the Indiana Statehouse on Friday to protest the layoffs.

"They have no shame," the self-described Democratic socialist said of the company. "Stop the greed. Stop destroying the middle class in America."

As with Trump, Sanders' populist message — with its frequent critiques of Wall Street, opposition to free trade deals, and promises of universal health care and tuition-free college — is resonating with many Democrats who feel like the economy has given them a raw deal.

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Eric Cottonham, a Carrier worker whose job will be eliminated, said he fought in the Middle East for the U.S. military only to return home to have to fight for his job.

"We thought the fight was over" when we came back from Iraq and Afghanistan, Cottonham said. "How sadly we were mistaken."

Trade has become a potential vulnerability for Clinton, whose husband, former President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which many blue-collar workers blame for the decline of American manufacturing.

In an effort to reassure them that she has their best interest in mind, she toured two manufacturing plants in Northern Indiana on Tuesday.

She criticized the Republican-controlled Indiana General Assembly for its “relentless assault on workers’ rights” in passing the "right to work" law and repealing the common construction wage. She also said companies moving overseas need to pay back any tax benefits they received.

In Connersville, Party Chairman Tim Rose said most Democrats are supporting Clinton, though he said he was surprised when more than 60 people showed up for a Sanders campaign-organizing event a few weeks ago.

Jim Barrett, a longtime union officer at a now-shuttered Ford Motor Co. Visteon auto plant, said he supported Clinton.

“I think Clinton would be better for the working people,” he said. “We sure fared well under her husband.”

But Dale Strong, a county councilman who worked for 30 years at the same plant as Bennett, said he preferred Sanders’ position on trade.

“We used to have 4,500 worked at local Ford Visteon plant here,” he said. “The reason that plant is not here anymore is because of the NAFTA. President Bill Clinton promoted and implemented it into law. This community was severely affected by the results of the agreement. We haven’t recovered from it yet.”

Manufacturing takes center stage

Here’s a breakdown of what the presidential candidates are saying about trade and American manufacturing jobs:

Clinton

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton visited two manufacturing plants in Northern Indiana on Tuesday as her first visits to the Hoosier state ahead of Tuesday's primary.

At Munster Steel in Hammond, Clinton said she had specific plans to grow manufacturing jobs in Indiana and sharply criticized the Republican-controlled Indiana General Assembly for its “relentless assault on workers’ rights” in passing the "right to work" law and repealing the common construction wage.

“It’s now our challenge to figure out how we are going to keep those jobs, grow those jobs, support those businesses, support those workers, support those unions, so we can have a renaissance in manufacturing,” Clinton said. “I believe passionately that we can do this.”

Clinton said companies moving overseas need to pay back any tax benefits they received. She also is proposing the creation of tax credits as a way to create more manufacturing jobs in hard-hit communities, such has Hammond and Gary.

Sanders

At campaign rallies in West Lafayette and Bloomington on Wednesday, Sanders chastised Carrier Corp. for its plans to lay off 1,400 American workers, even as the company is bringing in more than $2 billion in annual profits.

"This is a company that made a profit of more than $7 billion last year. This is a company that pays its CEO over $14 million in compensation last year,” Sanders said. “That is the type of corporate greed that is destroying the American middle class.”

He also blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement and other “disastrous trade policies” for costing Indiana thousands of manufacturing jobs.

“We have got to fundamentally rewrite our failed trade policies so that American jobs are no longer our number one export,” he said previously.

Trump

The 1,400 layoffs planned by Carrier in Indianapolis have been a favorite target of GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who said Wednesday he would "tax the hell" out of the company.

"You’re going to bring it across the border, and we’re going to charge you a 35 percent tax," Trump said at his first rally in Indianapolis. "Now within 24 hours they’re going to call back. 'Mr. President, we’ve decided to stay. We’re coming back to Indianapolis.'"

Cruz

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has said tax cuts and lifting regulations on small businesses would result in “millions of new high-paying jobs here in America.”

"Donald has a long history of threatening government retaliation against any company that moves jobs overseas — exactly like Obama and Hillary do,” Cruz said. “I think that's exactly backward. It is a tragedy that Carrier is moving so many jobs to Mexico, but it is responding to the disaster that is the Obama-Clinton economy. It is the federal government that has driven Carrier out of Indiana and is driving jobs away from America all across this country.

"Donald has no idea how to bring jobs back to America. His response to every problem is to yell and scream and curse and insult people. But he has no actual policy to fix the problem."

Kasich

In Ohio, Kasich has emphasized programs for developing a skilled workforce able to take high-paying advanced manufacturing jobs. He has said he is for “free trade” but it needs to be “fair trade,” according to USA TODAY.

“When American products and services are accessible around the world American businesses and workers benefit. Trade also enhances global security and stability,” according to an “Action Plan” on Kasich’s campaign website. “It can’t come at the cost of common sense, however. If other countries want access to the American market they should provide access to their markets, and trade violations must be quickly addressed to prevent significant economic damage to businesses and workers.”

"You don't win jobs through bombast," he told the Cincinnati Enquirer in October. "You win jobs by having a stable environment and budget under control and some reasonable tax incentives.”

IndyStar reporter Mark Alesia, Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Chrissie Thompson, Evansville Courier & Press reporter Thomas Langhorne and USA TODAY contributed to this report.

Call IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at (317) 444-6081. Follow him on Twitter: @indystartony.