A multiday bus tour through Ohio by
Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan this week further shows the
state's significance in the presidential race but also comes as a new
poll shows Ohio presents an uphill battle for the GOP ticket.
President
Obama, who will also make stops in the Buckeye State this week, leads
Romney 51%-46% among likely voters, according to a new poll by the Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio Newspaper Organization.
The
lead is within the poll's margin of error, showing the state remains
a tossup a little more than a week before voters can begin heading to
the polls. The poll corresponds with the Real Clear Politics average of
recent surveys that have Obama leading Romney in Ohio by 48.8%-44.7%.
(Obama won the state in 2008, 52%-46% over Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.)
Ohioans
can begin early voting as of Oct. 2. Both campaigns and outside groups
supporting each side have spent heavily in the state. So far,
$122,485,400 has been spent in Ohio alone, according to an NBC News
analysis. Obama and his supporters are outspending Romney and his
allies $64,085,768 to $58,399,632, respectively, NBC News reported.
Democrats are also outspending Republicans for get-out-the-vote efforts and other party organization, records show.
In
July, federal campaign-finance records show, the Republican National
Committee gave $35,800 to the Ohio GOP, while the Democratic National
Committee gave about $1.1 million to its Ohio counterpart. The RNC
appeared to step up the effort in August, transferring $552,000, while
Democrats transferred more than $2.3 million.
Such
an advantage means the Democrats have more money to open field offices,
run phone banks and use computerized records to identify voters and get
them out to vote.
The poll shows Obama
opening up a lead across all age groups, except those respondents 65 and
over who favor Romney. As in several other swing states, Obama has a
strong lead among women.
Ryan will kick off
the bus tour in Lima, Ohio, on Monday and continue to Cincinnati on
Tuesday. Romney will travel to the state Tuesday, starting with a stop
in Dayton, then continuing up through the state Wednesday with rallies
in Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo.
Obama will be in the northern part of the state Wednesday, making stops in the college towns of Bowling Green and Kent.
Both Romney and Obama will use their trip through the Buckeye State to emphasize their respective plans for the middle class.
The
trip comes as the Romney campaign tries for the third time in as many
weeks to get its message back on his plan for the economy and away from a
series of gaffes and distractions that have plagued it for much of
September.
The most recent misstep came Monday after Mother Jones magazine
released a video of Romney saying 47% of the electorate was out of
reach for his campaign because of their dependence on the government.
"There
are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what
... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are
victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for
them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to
housing, to you name it," Romney says on the video, which was taped with
a hidden camera. "And so my job is not to worry about those people --
I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility
and care for their lives."
After the video's
release, Romney defended the comments, made during a closed-door
fundraiser in May, saying they were "inelegant" but part of an important
debate about the role of government.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker told Fox News Sunday that in the next six weeks, Romney has to "get off the heels" and "get out and charge forward."
"I
think Americans want a fighter," Walker said. "He just needs more of an
opportunity to get beyond some of these sidebar issues."
In an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes
aired Sunday, Romney said that he wasn't concerned about the polls and
that his campaign did not need an overhaul, which some conservatives
have suggested in recent weeks.
"Well,
actually, we're tied in the polls. We're all within the margin of
error," he said, according to excerpts of the interview. "We bounce
around -- week to week -- day to day. There are some days we're up.
There are some days we're down."
Romney said his campaign "was doing a very good job."
"We've got a campaign which is tied with an incumbent president of the United States," he said.
Though
nationally the race remains tied, Romney has begun to fall behind in
several recent polls of swing states. Some polls this week showed him
down 4 to 7 percentage points.
Romney also addressed his 47% comments during the interview.
"(N)ot
everything I say is elegant," he said. "And -- and I want to make it
very clear -- I want to help 100% of the American people."
USA Today