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.

Kasich’s overreach gets put to the test in tomorrow’s election.

A new survey from Public Policy Polling (D) shows Ohio Democrats and public employee unions likely to win a big victory on Tuesday in the referendum on Republican Gov. John Kasich’s anti-public union bill, SB-5.

The poll shows only 36% of Ohioans will vote to support the law, while a decisive 59% oppose the bill and will vote to repeal it.

Kasich’s own approval mirrors those numbers, with only 33% approval and 57% disapproval. Kasich was elected in the 2010 Republican wave, defeating incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland by a 49%-47% margin. However, when asked if they could vote again, the respondents in this poll chose Strickland by a 55%-37% margin.

Let’s see exactly what happens tomorrow.

When the GOP swept into power in states like Ohio and Wisconsin, many pundits speculated that this would be terrible news for President Obama and Democrats in 2012. Yet they didn’t take into account some of the radical changes and cuts that would be passed by these governors, and now we’re seeing that Governors like John Kasich might be the best asset for Obama and the Democrats next year if these poll numbers hold up..

In Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich’s approval rating stood at just 30 percent last week, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. Earlier in the month — even before Kasich detailed a budget featuring cuts to Medicaid, local governments and more — the University of Cincinnati had that number at 40 percent. Both surveys showed nearly half of voters disapproved of Kasich.

Kasich has plenty of problems. First, he’s very abrasive. Then, he declared war on the unions in Ohio, including the police and firefighters unions that traditionally support Republicans. Now he’s paying the price.