CINCINNATI — President Barack Obama and GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan headed back to school Wednesday in the stepped-up competition for college voters in swing state Ohio.
Ryan, a graduate of Miami University in Ohio, had a rally at Baldwin Wallace University near Cleveland. Obama had an evening rally scheduled at Ohio University in southeastern Ohio.
Ohio University will be the fifth Ohio college the Democratic president has visited in less than a month.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Ryan also have recently visited several Ohio campuses. Last weekend, Romney had a rally at Shawnee State, while Ryan tailgated with Bowling Green State football fans and then spoke at Youngstown State. Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, made his alma mater in Oxford one of his first stops after being named as Romney’s running mate, and he also visited with fans at the Miami-Ohio State football game in Columbus soon afterward.
Exit polling in 2008 indicated Obama won two-thirds of the vote among college-age adults as he carried Ohio, a state expected to be close this year and possibly crucial to winning the White House. Underscoring the importance of Ohio and its college vote, Obama officially kicked off his re-election campaign in May at Ohio State.
In a return visit to OSU last week, Obama urged students to take buses provided for them at the rally to go to early voting locations, saying: “Everything we fought for in 2008 is on the line in 2012.”
But the Romney campaign thinks it will make inroads with young voters this year, and a campaign official said it is well organized on campuses across the state.
