Nearly 1,400 Laid Off at Ohio Truck Factory Days Before Trump Rally Nearby

Three days before Trump rallied at a high school just outside town, nearly 1,400 people in Springfield, Ohio lost their jobs in a single stroke.

Workers at the former Navistar truck factory were laid off on September 30, 2026, according to wire reporting. The cuts were large enough to basically erase a full year's worth of job growth across the greater Dayton, Ohio area -- a region that has already lost about 45,000 factory jobs since 1990, roughly half its manufacturing workforce.

"Something has to change politically in this country. Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse," laid-off worker Kyle Bos said. Fellow worker Marianne Donnelly described the slowdown that preceded the layoffs: "We weren't getting a lot of overtime because of the economy. There just wasn't any to be had, very little to be had."

Roshel, a Canadian armored-vehicle manufacturer, is purchasing the plant. The company says it's "working with everyone involved not only to protect the current workforce, but to more than double it over the coming years through a phased process." Laid-off workers are expected to be rehired within six to 12 months as the transition moves forward.

President Trump held a rally at a nearby high school on Saturday, October 3, as part of a 17-state midterm campaign push -- just three days after the layoffs hit the same community. Former UAW members have been canvassing the area for Democratic candidates ahead of November's election.

The plant transition to Roshel is expected to play out over the coming months. IF Daily will follow whether the promised rehiring materializes on the timeline workers were told to expect.