Sabrina Siddiqui

So much so that Democrats from the sidelines in Washington succeeded last year in pushing a new term to describe that economic reality.

Affordability crisis.

I'm Sabrina Siddiqui, and this is What's News Sunday.

Today, and over the next couple of months, we'll be hitting the road to report on the costs of everything from manufacturing to food to housing, and to see what the rising cost of living means for primaries ahead of November's midterm elections, including for the Republicans in control of Congress and the Democrats who are trying to define their identity and see an opportunity to retake the House and maybe even the Senate.

This is The Cost of Living Election, Part 1.

In this episode, we'll look at how President Trump's trade policy is playing out on the ground in Ohio, which holds primary elections this Tuesday.

Then I'll talk to some of my Wall Street Journal colleagues about what the manufacturing sector's challenges mean for hotly contested races in this state, including a Senate race that could affect the balance of power in Washington.

At Conselmer, not everyone agrees with Katrina McEvoy.

Robert Hines, the president of the union at the plant, says tariffs aren't necessarily the problem, even if they didn't save the factory.

Hines works on sousaphones, a massive instrument in the tuba family.

He says a lot of workers at the plant voted for Trump and believed his trade policies would help them.

According to them, Kahn-Selmer's mismanagement is to blame for the plant's demise.

Hines also points out that the owner of Conselmer, the hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, was on CNBC in 2024, talking up then-candidate Trump's tariffs as a way to keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

Paulson and the president are close, or at least they have been in the past.

He hosted a fundraiser for Trump in the lead-up to his reelection, and he was even in the running to lead the Treasury Department.

Hines says Trump should take advantage of his ties with Paulson to keep the plant open.

In a statement to us, Kahn-Selmer said the decision to close the plant will concentrate its professional brass manufacturing at an existing plant in Elkhart, Indiana, and that it remains, quote, deeply committed to U.S.

manufacturing.

Conselmer is a subsidiary of Steinway.

The iconic piano maker filed to go public in 2022 before dropping that idea the following year.