In the northwest corner of Ohio sits a county with an enviable bellwether reputation—only twice missing the presidential winner for the past 60 years. As with Ottawa County, its neighbor to the east along Lake Erie, Wood County is filled with farm fields, is home to many military veterans (about 7,000 of them), and hasn’t seen much expansion or change since the late 1970s or early 1980s. Wood (population 132,248), and Ottawa, are known as bellwether counties for picking the presidential candidate that wins the White House—but it is uncertain whether Wood County can maintain that reputation. Since picking the winning candidate in Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964, it has deviated from the winner only twice. A former Republican stronghold, Wood County supported GOP candidates Gerald Ford in 1976, and Donald Trump in 2020. “The state as a whole is going more Republican,” Wood County Board of Elections director …