A major poll for the first time shows Mitt Romney leading Barack Obama in the crucial battleground state of Ohio.
According to Rasmussen Reports, the Republican challenger has a two-point lead in The Buckeye State. The latest phone survey of likely Ohio voters shows Romney with 50 percent support and Obama with 48 percent. The state's Electoral College projections, however, remain a toss-up.
Phil Burress, chairman of the Citizens for Community Values (CCV), says the outcome depends on which side wins the turnout battle.
"If rural Ohio shows up to vote, they will definitely win," he asserts. "The only time that the candidate on the left wins is when the conservatives in rural Ohio stay home like they did in 2008, when 300,000 stayed home and Obama ended up winning Ohio by less than 300,000 votes."
Burress is skeptical about Rasmussen's claim that Obama leads Romney 62-36 percent among the nearly one in three who have already voted in Ohio.
"I don't think I would put a whole lot of stock into saying that there's a trend or something," he comments. "I know that we have six call centers operating in the state of Ohio right now. They're calling swing voters, and the report that we're getting is that they're swinging to Romney two-to-one -- the independents and the swing voters."
The CCV chairman does not think anyone can know who will win Ohio until all the votes are in and counted. "And it very well could be that whoever wins Ohio will win the presidency," he concludes.