Cleveland suburbs offer window into how pandemic policies could shape midterm election

The political fight over pandemic policy is playing out in America's suburbs, where some of the same voters -- namely suburban women -- who propelled Democrats to big wins in the 2018 and 2020 elections are now breaking ranks ahead of this year's midterms.

One window into the brewing fight is in northeastern Ohio. A mother in Shaker Heights, who recently participated in a White House call on Covid-19 policy, was eager to give Democrats the benefit of the doubt and help them win elections. But in Cleveland, another mother who recently wrote an attention-grabbing essay on losing faith in the party offered a glimpse at the peril Democrats could face in November.

"If you would've told me two years ago that I would be alienated from the Democratic Party, I wouldn't have believed it," Angie Schmitt, a Cleveland writer with two young children, said in an interview.