There’s no way Mitt Romney can win the presidential election without winning Ohio, and the auto bailout is making it very difficult for him in Ohio.

Democratic strategists and independent political observers credit Obama’s advantage to his support for the auto bailout and strategy of appealing to blue-collar workers. They also note that Ohio’s 7.2 percent unemployment rate is a full percentage point lower than the national average.

“Romney is going to have to do something very unusual to take Ohio away from the president,” said Jim Friedman, a Cleveland lawyer whose involvement with the state’s Democratic Party has spanned several decades.

Obama “is not doing great in Ohio, but he’s doing well enough,” said Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, who helped conduct the latest poll. “Obviously these numbers are good for him, and if the president wins this state, he’s going to get reelected.”

The auto bailout is perhaps Obama’s trump card in Ohio.

Friedman argued Obama’s support and Romney’s opposition to the bailout are resonating in Ohio, where the car industry “is both historically and psychologically important.”

Romney is trying to fight back, as he just launched a new ad showing a dealer who lost his dealership as a result of the bailout. But this is pure desperation, as that dealership would have gone under with Romney as president as well, since Romney opposed the auto bailout or any help for the industry in the middle of the financial crisis.

Take a look at this ad for the Obama campaign in Ohio and you’ll see how tough both sides are going to battle for this state. It’s still the ultimate battleground state:

The last time Ohio voters didn’t pick the winner in a presidential election was 1960. Republican Richard Nixon won the Buckeye State, but Democrat John F. Kennedy won the nation.

Since 1964, no other state has had such an unbroken string of siding with the winner.

No one can know until Nov. 6 whether 2012 will uphold Ohio’s record as the pre-eminent swing state or end its reign, but neither the Obama nor Romney campaign is taking a chance.

“The tipping-point states appear to be Virginia and Ohio,” said Chris Redfern, the Ohio Democratic Party chairman. He said the state party will run the biggest state campaign organization in the country.

“What we look at is building an infrastructure that can turn out as many votes for the President as possible in all of Ohio’s 88 counties,” Mr. Redfern said.

Right now I think Obama has the edge with the success of the Auto bailout and the fact that Romney backed Issue 2.