Video: US election: 'Shrinking population means we're kinda short on players', says Dunkirk ex-football coach All elections are decided on the economy, but to understand why that is doubly true of the 2012 US election, The Daily Telegraph today invites its readers on a journey into the fading industrial heartlands of America. The route takes us along US Highway 68, past the site of empty factories and through table-flat corn fields to the windswept, one-street town of Dunkirk, Ohio. There is a church, a café, a bar, a fire station and a population of about 875 people who are feeling the cold winds of global economic change. Pete Brunow, Dunkirk's former high-school football coach, says that due to the population shrinking in Dunkirk as people move out to find jobs, the town is "kinda of short of players." He says that this means that it will be hard to ever repeat winning the Ohio state championships as the town did in 2004. Over the next 50 days, up until polling day on November 6, the people of Dunkirk, Ohio will provide an earth-wire for The Daily Telegraph's election coverage, contrasting the national fizz and froth with the voices of struggling, hard-scrabble America.