MITT A HIT: Presidential nominee Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters working at Jet Machine in Cincinnati during an Ohio swing yesterday. (AP)
MITT A HIT: Presidential nominee Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters working at Jet Machine in Cincinnati during an Ohio swing yesterday. (AP)
CINCINNATI, Ohio — Mitt Romney barnstormed across Ohio yesterday in a late-stage bid to win over the crucial battleground state and snatched a 2008 campaign theme from President Obama: change.
“We will bring big change to Washington,” Romney said at a rally on a factory floor, mentioning the “big change” catchphrase a dozen times in a state that went for Obama four years ago.
Trying to maintain a sense of optimism that has sprung up around his campaign since the debates, Romney fired up a crowd of 4,000 at Cincinnati’s Jet Machine aerospace-parts factory in his first of three rallies.
But he wasn’t alone on the ground in the Buckeye State. Obama, fresh off casting his vote early during a stop in Chicago, rolled into Ohio late yesterday after stops in Florida and Virginia.
Obama — who became the first sitting president to vote early — is trying to boost his campaign’s nationwide effort to bank as many votes as possible before Election Day after a poll this week showed him beating Romney 2 to 1 among early voters in Ohio.
Introducing Romney yesterday, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman told the Cincinnati crowd: “How about after this event we get in our cars and go down to Broadway and vote early?”
But when The Post visited the early-voting site downtown, there were mostly Obama backers lined up outside.
Obama, who has been watching his advantage among women slowly evaporate, made a renewed pitch yesterday by making indirect references to Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock’s controversial remarks about rape and pregnancy.
Romney has disavowed those remarks but has not withdrawn his endorsement of the Republican Senate candidate.
“I don’t think any politician in Washington, most of whom are men, should be making health-care decisions for women,” Obama said yesterday in Tampa.
An AP-GfK poll yesterday showed Romney erasing Obama’s gender gap with women for the first time, with the candidates tied among women voters 47-47. Obama held a 16-point lead a month ago.
Romney yesterday focused on his push to rebuild the economy and create jobs — a message that appears to be winning over some women.
Romney comes back to the state today, and Obama returns on Monday with sidekick Bill Clinton.