Presidential campaign becoming all about who can win in Ohio

MANSFIELD, Ohio — It's all about Ohio — again.

The economy has improved here, and so has President Barack Obama's standing, putting pressure on Republican Mitt Romney in a state critical to his presidential hopes.

No Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio, and Romney hopes to catch Obama here by slashing at his jobs record in working-class regions.

"America doesn't have to have the long face it has had under this president," the Republican shouted Monday to a cheering audience in hard-scrabble Mansfield, just weeks after Obama visited. "We can get America rolling again, growing again."

In a sign of the state's importance, hardly a week goes without the candidates appearing in Ohio. Same goes for their running mates; Republican Paul Ryan was campaigning in the Appalachian southeast Wednesday, following a similar weekend trip by Vice President Joe Biden, who is to return to the state Wednesday.

Less than two months from Election Day, both parties say their internal campaign polling shows Obama with a narrow lead in Ohio, a Midwestern state that offers 18 Electoral College votes and has played an important role in determining every recent White House race.

Numbers tell the story of the high stakes and, perhaps, show why Obama has been able to maintain an edge — and why Romney remains within striking distance.

The candidates and supportive outside groups have spent a stunning $112 million on TV advertising in the state — one-sixth the total spent nationwide. And Obama and groups that support him have been outspending Romney and Republican-leaning independent groups here all summer, outpacing the GOP $2 million to $1 million last week alone. That's despite Romney having tapped into his general election bank account last week to boost his ads here.

All year, the race here has been close. A Quinnipiac University poll in April after Romney locked up the Republican nomination showed a 1-point race among registered voters in the state. But two recent polls — Quinnipiac/CBS/New York Times in August and July — showed Obama up 6 percentage points among likely voters, and reaching 50 percent, a key marker for an endangered incumbent.

Both Republicans and Democrats say internal surveys show it tighter now, with Obama leading by about 3 percentage points.

Still, Democrats are almost giddy that Obama has been able to show strength in this manufacturing state, which suffered during the recession but has seen its unemployment rate fall from 7.7 percent in January to 7.2 percent in July.

While Obama stayed in Washington on Monday, the president's team also reveled in the fact that he edged Romney in monthly fundraising — $114 million vs. $111 million — for the first time in three months, as well as in national opinion surveys that showed the Democrat's standing improving a bit after his national nominating convention in Charlotte, N.C., last week.

In Ohio, Romney looked to take advantage of Obama's absence, blistering the president over deep defense cuts scheduled as part of a deficit-reduction proposal. Those possible cuts mean the city would lose its 179th Air National Guard unit, which would cost hundreds of jobs. That's on top of a GM plant that closed in nearby Ontario, Ohio, two years ago.

"It will be bad for employment if it goes forward. It will also be bad for our national security," Romney said, promising to block such cuts as president.

Here and elsewhere, Obama is working to spread a message of economic progress, despite a national unemployment rate stuck above 8 percent.