The Advocate's Big Four Report: Ohio

Target State: Ohio

Electoral College Votes: 20?

Voted for Bush: 2000 and 2004 ?

Governor: Ted Strickland (D)?

State Senate: 12 Dem, 21 GOP?

State House: 46 Dem, 53 GOP

When President George W. Bush edged out John Kerry in Ohio by just two percentage points in 2004, some analysts argued he was helped by receiving 16% of the African-American vote -- up from 9% in 2000 -- and that the black voters had shown up to vote in favor of the state’s constitutional marriage amendment.

Whether that theory is true or not, it won’t help Sen. John McCain much this year, since an ABC News/Washington Post poll earlier this month showed the state’s black voters supporting Sen. Barack Obama over McCain 98% to 1%. Accordingly, the Obama campaign is trying to maximize turnout among the state’s African-American electorate, and campaign officials reportedly believe they must achieve a 75% turnout rate in that demographic.

But as always, Ohio will be a game of margins and some of those margins are still in question. For instance, Ohio's secretary of state says that about 200,000 of the state’s roughly 666,000 new voters registered since the start of 2008 still have to be verified. To put that in perspective, John Kerry lost the state in 2004 by about 119,000 votes.

A recent poll by Fox News/Rasmussen Reports survey taken Sunday night puts Barack Obama about four percentage points (49%-45%) ahead of John McCain -- the widest lead in several weeks of seesawing polls that gave McCain a two-point advantage last week and had Obama up by two the previous week.

“Both candidates have put a lot of effort, a lot of time, and a lot of money into Ohio, and what I see right now is Barack Obama with a small but measurable lead in Ohio,” says Herb Asher, professor of political science at Ohio State University.

Obama is helped by a number of factors in Ohio this year, not the least of which are the economy and a superior ground game to that of the Democrats in 2004.

“John Kerry’s campaign basically focused on the six major urban counties,” Asher says. “The Obama campaign is organized throughout the state, including in regions where he’s not going to carry those counties. If you can reduce your deficit in certain areas, that’s just as good as getting the vote of another area.”

Asher names Delaware County, just north of Columbus, for instance, as one of the fastest-growing areas of the state and highly Republican. “I’m very confident John McCain will carry it,” Asher says, “but the interesting thing will be, how does he do in comparison to George Bush, four years ago? And my guess is that he won’t do as well.”