Presidential Polls Swing States: Ohio Tied Between Obama, Romney
As Election Day gets closer and closer, the focus is narrowing to a handful of swing states that will likely determine the winner of the election for the presidency.
One such state is Ohio, which has been an important swing state in many previous elections. The state offers 18 electoral votes, which is not nearly as many as treasure chest states like California (55 electoral votes) or Texas (38 votes), but Ohio seems to be taking center stage in the battle between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Obama had been holding onto a small lead in Ohio, but just by a hair — the president was ahead of Romney by only one percentage point. But the newest data from Ohio from polling firm Rasmussen shows that Romney has closed the gap.
The candidates are now tied in the Buckeye state. Both Romney and Obama have support from 48 percent of the voters surveyed in Rasmussen's poll, based on the data as of Wednesday, Oct. 24. Of the remaining respondents surveyed, 2 percent plan to vote for a different, third party candidate, and 3 percent are still undecided about how they will cast their vote on Nov. 6.
Even The New York Times has identified Ohio as a critical part of this campaign. In his Five Thirty Eight politics blog, Times columnist Nate Silver wrote that the Times has been running thousands of Electoral College simulations every day, and 95 percent of the time, the candidate who wins Ohio wins the entire election.
"Whether you call Ohio a 'must-win' is a matter of semantics, but its essential role in the Electoral College should not be hard to grasp," Silver wrote.
According to The New York Times projections, either candidate faces a tough road if he loses Ohio. If Romney fails to carry the state, he would likely need to win both Iowa and Nevada to take home the presidency. If Obama loses in Ohio, the president would need to win a combination of Colorado, Virginia, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin to keep himself in office.
