Ohio governor works to erase state's 'Rust Belt' label

Why is it hard?

Because it's been repeated and entrenched over more than 30 years, including by President Donald Trump during last year's election, when he called Ohio and Pennsylvania places where "everything is rusting and rotting."

The industry was devastated by a combination of economic changes in the 1970s and 1980s, including foreign competition and strict environmental regulations.

Mondale attacked the economic policies of incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan for "turning our great industrial Midwest and the industrial base of this country into a rust bowl," according to the Dictionary of American History.

During their 2006 campaigns, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and former Gov. Ted Strickland, both Democrats, promised to make Ohio "the Silicon Valley on alternative energy."

A recent "Trust Belt" movement by central U.S. business leaders pushes back against what they say is a media misrepresentation of the region's economic progress.

Marketing and economic development experts say the best way to shed Ohio's Rust Belt label would be to acknowledge and embrace the state's manufacturing legacy with a new image that it can live up to.