Rallying the wrong people

Donald Trump really, really wants to win Loudoun County—the absurdly wealthy Northern Virginia county where the rally Rahimyar protested took place. Trump even said so in his speech. And he should; George W. Bush won it in 2000 and 2004, and Barack Obama picked it up in 2008 and 2012. Loudoun voters predict presidents. Trump seems to get that.

“Loudoun County is so important,” he told the crowd at the offset of the rally.

But—evidenced by his speech—he doesn’t understand it. At all. And if he wants to compete there, he’s going to have to learn quick.

Loudoun is the richest county in America. That’s due in part to the enormous amount of money the federal government spent on the War on Terror in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The place is replete with defense contractors, engineers, and rocket scientists. And it’s recession-proof; while the rest of the country struggled through the Great Recession, Loudoun kept sprouting up neighborhoods of McMansions, seemingly with a swimming pool in every backyard.

But Trump seems to think it’s part of the Rust Belt. Toward the end of his speech—to an atypically preppy, professional, clean-cut audience—the candidate bashed the county economy.

“You’re doing lousy over here, by the way, I hate to tell you,” he said.

That is empirically false.

He then listed a number of factory closures, including Ball Corp., which was five hours away in Bristol, as far from Loudoun as you can get without leaving the state. And he mentioned the closure of a Smithfield Foods Inc.

“Anybody used to work for Smithfield?” he asked the crowd.

It’s almost certain none of them did. The Smithfield plant that closed was in Hampton Roads, Virginia—three hours from Ashburn, in the southeast corner of the state.

As Trump was going through this list, a man in the front yelled about sequestration—the defense spending cuts that actually jeopardize Northern Virginia jobs.

“It’s true, it’s true,” Trump replied.

Then he went back to naming factories.

“Stanley Furniture closed its plant,” he continued.

Stanley Furniture did indeed recently close a plant, in 2014. That plant was in North Carolina.

He also mentioned the closure of a plant owned by Invista, a Koch Industries company that produces fabric and carpeting. That plant was two hours from Ashburn, and it closed eight years ago.

Then Trump discussed job losses in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

He wasn’t completely tone-deaf; the mogul also talked about increasing defense spending, particularly on the Air Force. But the bulk of his rally speech felt like it was being delivered in Youngstown, Ohio, or Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—he rambled about currency manipulation, NAFTA, unfair competition with South Korea, the perils of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and on and on. And while factory closures and globalization present very real economic hazard to many families around the country, they simply aren’t an issue in Loudoun.