Football and mowers

A brief guide to Clark County

Get the name of a US voter

Even Ohio's proudest natives concede that it doesn't have the rough-hewn glamour of Texas, or the evocative pull of states such as Louisiana or Mississippi; it isn't particularly central to US history, like Massachusetts, or even notably eccentric, like Utah. It is flat. It is temperate: it is the heartland.

"It's a balanced place," Herb Asher, an Ohio State University political scientist, says simply. As a result, Clark County, the focus of the Guardian's election project, offers about as representative a cross-section of American life outside the big cities as it is possible to find in such a kaleidoscopic nation.

The area's vital statistics underline that: in 2003, the population of 143,351 had a median income of $40,340 (£22,500) - just a sliver below the US average. Eighty-eight per cent of them were white, compared to 77% nationally.

With an Air National Guard base in Springfield, the county's major town, and the Wright-Patterson air force base, one of the nation's most important, not far away, there is a strong military influence; that will account for much Republican support, and has kept Iraq at the centre of local pre-election debate. But the soldiers and their families are balanced by the blue-collar workforce at Navistar, Springfield's biggest local employer, which makes agricultural equipment. (Clark County's famous sons may include James Thurber, and president William H Taft, but it was another local boy, William Whitely, who made the biggest difference, by inventing the first combined self-raking reaper and mower.) Navistar has been forced to lay off hundreds of workers over the past four years; economic issues, Asher says, will be crucially important in swaying undecided voters.

When they're not working, plenty of Springfielders are watching football - the Ohio Buckeyes football team absorbs much of the state's attention, while closer to home, the focus is the longstanding crosstown sporting battle between the town's North High School and South High School. As across the midwest, antique buying and selling is also massively popular; Springfield is home to three of the region's largest antique malls. The Springfield Museum of Art is one of Ohio's finest; the picturesque campus of Wittenberg University is home to 2,000 students.

"We do have our social problems," says Tracy Figley, the general manager of WEEC Christian Radio in Springfield, and a 17-year veteran of the area. "I can't compare it to bigger cities, because I've never lived in bigger cities, but we do have gangs, we do have drug problems. I'm not sure you're even safe in what you'd traditionally call the good side of town: it depends on what mischief is lurking in the hearts of people."

Gay marriage has become a central issue for the town's sizeable evangelical community, Figley argues: he says he knows many who would have voted for Kerry despite differences on abortion but who plan to vote for Bush because of the candidates' differing positions on same-sex unions. But the key national issues of Iraq and the economy will still dominate the closing weeks of the election race.