you went from dayton, ohio, to marion, ohio. >> if anyone comes to the white house from ohio, they'll get a hershey bar this big. >> pandering to ohio. the race for ohio is going to come down to the margins. mitt romney doesn't have to win these big democratic counties. he just has to hold down the president's score. george w. bush won the race in 2004 by limiting kerry's gain. something he couldn't do to barack obama in 2008. look at three of the largest counties in the state. kerry won by 227,000 votes. in 2008, fewer people voted but president obama added to his margin. he won by 30,000 more votes. in lucas county, in 2008 obama won the county by nearly 70,000 votes. and then of course there's franklin county which includes the capital of columbus. one of the faster growing parts of the state. in 2004, john kerry won it by just 48,000 votes. four years later, president obama more than doubled that total. he won by 116,000 votes. that's one way to watch this is on the margins. the test. does he maintain those margins? add to them? the challenge for mitt romney, can he do with a bush

we're going to win. >> and ohio has been critical. necessary to every republican presidential win. but president obama has held on to a small lead there. his strategists are buoyed by polling that shows a 2-1 lead for the president among early voters. the president staged the finale of his 48-hour marathon campaign in ohio. >> i am glad to be back in cleveland, ohio. >> despite the money, the trips, and the speeches, ohio and virginia remain stubbornly in the toss-up category. a newly released cnn poll shows the president with a 50 to 46 lead in ohio. former ohio governor ted strickland and virginia governor bob mcdonnell up next. namely, other humans. which is why, at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get

all roads are leading to one state, ohio. abc's david muir is there to tell us why. david? >> reporter: good evening, diane. as you know, ohio could be the key to the presidency. the president needs it to hold on, mitt romney needs it to make the map work. which is why both candidates are tailoring their message to ohio voters when they come to the buckeye state. and, of course, there's the ground game. tonight, we take you inside it all. here in ohio tonight, mitt romney spelling out where the stakes are the highest. o-h -- >> i-o! >> reporter: given the math, whoever wins the buckeye battle will almost certainly win the white house. the president mentioning ohio 16 times in one stop to date. >> two weeks, ohio. here in ohio. people of ohio don't forget. >> reporter: and part of the president's playbook here, a tailored message for ohio. >> if mitt romney had been president when the auto industry was on the verge of collapse, we might not have an american auto industry today. the auto industry supports 1 in 8 ohio jobs. >> reporter: since june, the president has made 14 tri

we're going to win. >> and ohio has been critical. necessary to every republican presidential win. but president obama has held on to a small lead there. his strategists are buoyed by choosing an overwhelming 2-1 lead for the president among early voters. the president staged the finale of his 48-hour marathon campaign in ohio. >> i am glad to be back in cleveland, ohio. >> despite the money, the trips, and the speeches, ohio wree main stubbornly in the toss-up category. a cnn poll reveals the president with a 50% to 46% lead. former ohio governor ted strickland and virginia governor bobbing mcdonnell up next. dad's tablet... or lauren's smartphone... at&t has a plan built to help make families' lives easier. introducing at&t mobile share. one plan lets you share data on up to 10 devices with unlimited talk and text. add a tablet for only $10 per month. at&t. add a tablet for only $10 per month. one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner

it's your turn. >> romney is going to ohio. romney is going to carry ohio. very, very close race, but this race fundamentally changed wednesday night in ohio. i think it did across the country. tremendous energy now, but i think here's where we were going into the debate. people like -- they said i like the guy, i like his family. he is a good person. he is not doing a very good job. the opponent, then the next question is, is the challenger up to it? is he the person we want? frankly, going into wednesday night, people had not answered that second question. romney had not made the sale. i think what you saw wednesday night was the first opportunity that the average person had to see these two candidates head-to-head for an extended period of time, and when they saw that, guess who won? romney won. he looked presidential, he had confidence, he had a plan. he was confident in that plan. the presidt was in a situation where he couldn't defend the last four years. maybe that's not because he is not a good debater. we know he is a good debater. he couldn't defen

i'm about to talk to john casic in ohio. these themes are perfectly in his house because it's what is going to decide ohio. before we do that, i think it would be interesting because we talk so much about ohio, how do you win the campaign. i want to bring chuck back in. we have a poll out of ohio, 49-49. the race is tight. this was before the final debate. take a moment here to take us through how each side wins this state. >> the joke is, it's five states within one state. the five ohios. the romney pattern, run up the score in cold country, it's what bush did in '04. win columbus media market an '04 bush territory. for the president, run up the store in cleveland, cuyahoga county and overperform with working class white guys in the auto belt, if you will. if you are looking at one county that may tell us more than anything, sit over here and we are going to hamilton county. look at this. it's as easy of a swing county as it was. bush in '04. obama by 30,000. it's why romney spent a lot of time in cincinnati this week. now l

ohio goes. let's turn to governor of ohio, john kasich. always great to have you on the program. >> good to listen to the big debate on "meet the press" this morning, wow. >> it's nice to start with a little bit of a chuckle here before we get into the serious issues. this was the cleveland "plain dealer" on thursday, jeff darcy here's his cartoon. i thought was so telling. it's the martian landing saying, take me to your leaders. and the guy says, they're somewhere in ohio. take i-75 north. as you know, everybody is in ohio. i want to ask you the direct question, governor, you've got 7% unemployment. it's better than the national average. who deserves credit for that? is it the president? is it you as the republican governor? or neither one of you? >> you know, david, it's probably the job creators, we're up 112,000 jobs, the last four years, we were down 4,000 jobs. how did we get there? we've made ohio safe for business expansion and business attraction. we balanced our budget. we're running a half a billion dollars in the rainy day fund

it's easier to replace ohio. it suspect that the romney forces are going to try to continue to broaden this battlefield to their advantage. if you look at north carolina and florida, they are moving in governor romney's direction, moving away from president obama. that has to be troubling, particularly when the margin is narrow for the president. >> bret: is it possible, most analysts tell you it look like a tight race. is it possible this opens up governor romney dramatically and the bottom drops out on the obama campaign? on the flip side, what is the possibility it goes the other way to president obama? two-point win could be big electoral vote win. all of the states are within one or two points of each other. if you get a two-point move by either in the last few days here all of them could fall in one person's lap. traditionally that happened for challenger, not the incumbent. the other thing going on here is the early vote. both campaigns are hustling up the votes. early vote. a lot of people voted in ohio. a

it's really what's going to decide ohio. before we do that, think it would be so interesting to really understand -- we talk so much about ohio. how do you win the state? how do both campaigns win it? i want to bring chuck back in. we've got a new poll coming out of ohio, 49-49, razor tight and this was before the final debate. take a moment here to take us through how each side thinks they win the state. >> you know, the joke is there are five -- it's five states within one state. the five ohios. but let me just take you through basically the romney pattern here which is run up the score in coal country. that's what bush did in '04, and win the swing areas of columbus media market, an '04 bush territory. was '08 obama. and win hamilton county. for the president, run up the score in cleveland, cuyahoga county and overperform with working class white guys in the auto belt, if you will, the toledo area, but if you're looking at just one county that may tell us more than anything, david, you sit over here and we're going to take

ohio is where we have to concentrate. unemployment there is at 7.2%. that is significantly lower than the national unemployment rate. how does that number, the ohio unemployment rate, play in this election? >> well, i think it's very helpful to the president. quite frankly. and lawrence -- ohio's economy -- >> let me stop you there. it's still a high number. 7.2 is not what anyone think of as low unemployment in ohio. >> of course. but we're moving in the right direction. and you know, it's unusual for ohio to have an unemployment rate lower than the national average. >> that's right. >> let me tell you why that's happening. it's because the president rescued the american auto industry. and today, multimillion dollar investments are being made in ohio. jobs are being created. we think about 850,000 ohio jobs were saved as a result of the president's action. and mitt romney was on the other side. and ohioans, lawrence, they really understand what's going on here. and that's one of the major reasons. the other major reason,

they'll probably have to win two of three of those states. and then as you mention, ohio seems to be the place where we are every other day. >> ron mott in st. petersberg, it's much warmer everywhere else. >>> it's just 28 days until election day? >>> senate surprises. up is down, cats and doggings living together, we got new numbers to show you in some senate states. plugs coin flip counties, we're taking a look at the biggest t battleground counties. but first, a look ahead at the schedules of the president, who makings up in california that heads to ohio and mitt romney as you know, from iowa to ohio. he's in the four letter state game. you're watching the daily you're watching the daily rundown only on msnbc. [ thunder crashes ] it doesn't. stop pretending. only flood insurance covers floods. ♪ visit floodsmart.gov/pretend to learn your risk. and it's working. i'm not hungry. i'm just losing weight eating real food in the real world. and it feels pretty awesome. [ female announcer ] join now for free. hurry offer ends october 20th. weight watchers. because it works. h

today is the last day to register. but in ohio republicans are going to fight down to the wire down to the bloody end to stop ohio voters from being able to early vote in the last few days before the election, which i should tell you is when nearly 100,000 people voted in ohio the last time. more than a third of the overall margin of victory by which president obama won that state in 2008 were votes cast in the last 30 days. and honestly, it is not subtle why the republicans are trying to do this, right? the chairman of the republican party in the county where columbus is, he said he didn't have an interest in, quote, accommodating the urban-read african-american voter turnout machine in ohio. he's the one who said read african-american. i didn't insert that there. he's not only the chairman, he's on the county election board for the columbus area. he's on the county election board for the columbus area. he will be running the elections there. all the while, resenting the african-american turnout machine. in the city of cleveland,

who is going to win this state? ohio state senator nina turner will weigh in on a number of different issues. stay with us. you're watching "the ed show" on msnbc. >>> governor romney, you keep on trying to air brush history. >> welcome back to "the ed show." one of the most contentious topics from last night's debate strikes at the heart of what this election is about for workers. the candidates clashed over shipping jobs to china. romney is good at that. the the moderator asked romney if threatening china could ignite a trade war. >> they sell us about this much stuff every year. and we sell them about this much stuff every year. it's pretty clear who doesn't want a trade war. there's one going on right now, which we don't know about. and they are winning. >> romney likes to whine about china, but the president didn't let him get away with it. >> governor romney is right. you are familiar with jobs being shipped overseas because you invested in companies shipping jobs overseas. >> romney wants to label china a currency

do everything to rig the election. here in ohio you have a circuit court that is saying to the secretary of state the people of ohio have a right to vote as they have historically. let them vote the three days prior to the election and he's fighting it, right up to the last minute and using taxpayer dollars to do that. he's a republican secretary of state. his job is secretary of state should be to make it easy for people to vote, not hard for people to vote to simplify the process. >> congresswoman, when i look at the polls on seeing that 47% of americans now see mr. romney more favorable, highest favorable rating so far, but he's still under water, 51% of northwesterns see it unfavorably. only four other candidates carter mondale. george h.w. bush and john kerry were under water in popularity polls at this point in the race. they all lost. meanwhile, the president is also at a popularity high with 5% favorability rate 44% unfavorable. he's high in ohio because unemployment has fallen down 3.5% since 2009. in the state of ohio it'

ohio. mitt romney has to win ohio. esident obama has to win ohio and that's why mitt romney was willing to say flatly what he said in the debate tonight, was to put it generously in an overstatement. >> howard fineman, thank you for that. we'll do our best to get a more formal follow- up from the romney campaign to find out if he's walking back that statement or whether or not mitt romney misspoke or does in fact stick by what he said in the debate. it was striking that that exchange between the two candidates ended with mr. romney insisting that we will -- everybody will look this up. we will go to the record on this. >> i thought the biggest key in that answer was the president talked about private equity money. it wasn't available. it wasn't there. there were no taker. no one from wall street, no one -- no adelsons, and no bain. no one was willing to stand up and say, you know what, we believe in the american workers and we're going to manufacture vehicles in this country. there was no money out there. the only chanc

i don't think they've written ohio out or excuse me off. it's still their path to 270. hey're there. because there's excitement on the ground there. you're seeing vol -- >> can you win the presidency without ohio? >> yes. i believe so. i've not done the private polling. look what they're doing. they wouldn't be there if this wasn't a winnable state for them. one of the things you should look at, take a look at maine. there's a chance you're seeing an erosion of support for obama in a very blue state where one of them is actually pulling higher than ohio. this happened in '08 with nebraska. >> before i let you out of here, we saw them talking about abortion and he knew of no abortion legislation that would be part of his plan and ryan said he wouldn oppose it except in the cases of rape and incest and life or death of a mother. >> as a woman, i saw no daylight from what he has said all along. women have a lot of choices to make in this election. i think people are trying to make a bigger deal out of it than this. they've got to make choices on job, on energy, on taxes. an

who is going to win this state? ohio state senator nina turner will weigh in on a number of different issues. stay with us. you're watching "the ed show" on msnbc. [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. ♪ ha ha! ♪ you're not just looking for a by house. eyes you're looking for a place for your life to happen. >>> governor romney, you keep on trying to airbrush history. >> welcome back to "the ed show." one of the most contentious topics from last night's debate strikes at the heart of what this election is about for workers. the candidates clashed over shipping jobs to china. romney is good at that. the the moderator asked romney if threatening china could ignite a trade war. >> they sell us about this much stuff every year. and we sell them about this much stuff every year. it's pretty clear who do

the president to get to 270 with ohio? let's start with the president. he's at 237 right now, electoral college votes, leaning or strong for him, 206 for romney. if the president were to take ohio it puts him at 255, the easiest way for the president to get over the top, stay in the midwest. take wisconsin, take iowa, and the president's over the top. let's just say for the sake of argument he takes wisconsin but governor romney gets the state of iowa on election day. the president would still be at 265 with ohio and wisconsin, then he just needs five more. new hampshire would give him four so that's not big enough. but obama campaign increasingly thinks the latino vote in nevada would do it. that would put the president over the top there. if he didn't get nevada for some reason, the president's options would be colorado, virginia, new hampshire or florida. the president with an easier path. what about governor romney. let's leave this one blue. can governor romney get there if ohio is going blue. can romney get all the wa

let's turn to senator sherrod brown of ohio. to have you with us tonight. >> good to be back. >> this is mitt romney trying to reinvent himself on the automobile loan, which of course, was risky business politically for the president. is romney's stance on this auto industry hurting him in ohio or helping him? >> it's the primary reason that romney just can't get traction in this state. i'm talking to you from cleveland. it's northeast ohio, but all of ohio. we're an auto state. we're a food process iing state. we're a medical device state. but we know what this meant to ohio. look at it this way. our unemployment rate in ohio, at the time the auto rescue took hold was 10.5%. today it's down to 7%. that's not good enough, but it's auto rescue, it's enforcement and trade rules. we have a new steel mill in youngstown. we have tires in finley. the president mentioned that last night. our state is on the move in part because manufacturing is coming back. that's led -- always led by auto. when manufacturing grows, it's usually auto-le

be reelected and ohio is going to lead the way. >> autoll in certain regions of ohios as yo know. but what you're really saying here, that this would tighten, that the president really still is ahead in ohio. >> sure. >> in fact, in pennsylvania, there's a new quinnipiac poll that shows what was a 12 point lead for obama, now it's only four. some tightening there. so if the romney campaign is trying to pull some resources from pennsylvania to places like ohio and virginia, doesn't it stand to reason here it could be even closer in ohio, though? >> i don't think it is. show me the evidence. the fact is that ohioans have been for and with this president. and you talk about the auto industry being a regional issue. but we believe about 80 of 88 counties are in some way involved in the supply chain that enables these auto plants to really function. and that's what's important about this auto industry rescue. it has a broad sweep across all of ohio and michigan and indiana, but ohio particularly has benefitted from the auto have i and mitt romn