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.

Ohio will be a battleground again in 2012 for the presidential election, and right now President Obama is hanging tough against likely opponent Mitt Romney.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney overtook former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in a new Buckeye State poll released Wednesday by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The eight-day survey, which ended Monday, shows that 27 percent of Republicans here favor Romney. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who finished eight votes behind Romney in this month’s Iowa caucuses, received 18 percent; Gingrich received 17 percent.

Romney today would be the strongest candidate in a head-to-head showdown with President Barack Obama. The poll found that 44 percent of Ohio voters would vote for Obama, 42 percent for Romney — a virtual tie given the poll’s 2.4 percent margin of error.

The hypothetical match was a percentage point tighter in last month’s poll.

Romney was in favor of Issue 2, so I suspect that the Obama campaign will hammer him on that. If they do this in the spring and early summer, Romney might not be able to recover in Ohio, and there’s no way Romney can win the election without Ohio.