As Ohio has become almost a must-win state for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, he has sought to blur distinctions between himself and President Barack Obama on the issue of the 2009 auto bailouts. 

A new TV ad playing to erroneous fears that Jeep might move its manufacturing from Ohio to China caps a prolonged effort by Romney to recast his opposition to Obama's actions to prop up an industry that employs one in eight of Ohio's voters. 

Romney has sought to reframe his criticism of Obama's handling of the 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler in an effort to combat the president's usage of the bailout to court swing voters in the Buckeye State. The GOP nominee has argued it was Obama who took the companies bankrupt, and has argued that he would be a better president for beleaguered autoworkers.

And a new television ad airing in Toledo and Youngstown, Ohio, the Romney campaign raises the specter of production of Jeeps moving from the U.S. to China, an assertion which Jeep's Italian parent company has said is blatantly false.

Related: Ohio governor says Romney will carry Buckeye State

The GOP candidate's new tack represents an effort to play offense on the issue of auto bailouts in the final eight days of the campaign. Obama has used Romney's opposition to the 2008-09 rescue to great effect in Ohio and other Midwestern states, where the former Massachusetts governor must perform well if he's to have any hope of being elected president.

"You saw in the debates that Barack Obama said a few things that were, as he said, whoppers," Ohio Sen. Rob Portman said at a Romney rally on Monday in Cleveland. "He turned to Mitt Romney and said, 'You wanted to take those companies through bankruptcy and not provide them any federal aid.' Let me tell you, I supported a rescue package for the autos, but what Barack Obama said was simply not true. And by the way, it was Barack Obama who took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy."

Ohio's Republican governor, John Kasich, also suggested Sunday on "Meet the Press" that the bailout hadn't been as great as Obama might suggest.

"We are thrilled that we have a strong auto industry," he argued, "but it doesn't account for the growth of 112,000 jobs in our state."

But it was the Jeep ad in particular that marked the culmination of an effort by Romney over the past 18 months to reframe the auto debate on friendlier terms.

"Obama took GM and Chrylser into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians, who are going to build Jeeps in China," the narrator of the ad says as a clip of a disputed Bloomberg News report appears onscreen, saying Chrysler "plans to return Jeep output to China."

The original Bloomberg report became fodder for conservatives, including Romney, who said  last week in Ohio that Jeep "is thinking of moving all production to China." But Jeep's ownership has said it isn't planning to move any U.S. production to China; rather, the automaker is establishing new capacity in China to build vehicles that will be sold in China.

But the ad plays to those ill-founded fears. A fair viewing of the ad might leave that impression with a voter, though the language in the ad is so narrowly tailored that it can't be directly disputed.

That could make a difference in a battleground territory like northwest Ohio, the home to a major Jeep plant that employs thousands of Toledoans and almost left the area in the late 1990s until the city stepped forward to offer hundreds of millions in tax credits.

The Obama campaign responded with a TV ad of its own, accusing the GOP nominee of being "wrong then" and "dishonest now."

"It reeks of desperation, because that's what it is," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said Monday on a conference call.

But the Jeep ad is just one component of Romney's months-long effort to better couch his opposition to the bailout.

FIRST READ: Romney's chances in Ohio tied to softening bailout stance

Romney, whose father was an auto executive before becoming governor of Michigan, penned an op-ed shortly after the 2008 election, infamously titled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." The piece for the New York Times opposed the loans for the companies that then-outgoing President George W. Bush and some Republicans (including Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman who would become Romney's vice presidential nominee) had favored, calling instead for a managed bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler with government support for the companies' warranties and for post-bankruptcy financing offered by private lenders.

Obama eventually embarked upon a different course. His administration negotiated a managed bankruptcy with bondholders, autoworkers' unions and the companies' leadership, while occasionally injecting the companies with capital drawn from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in order to stave off a more drastic bankruptcy, and possible liquidation.

Democrats contend that no private financing was available to the auto companies during the bailout, and the government was the only actor equipped to provide the companies with a lifeline while simultaneously negotiating their bankruptcy, from which GM and Chrysler immediately emerged.

The bailout was unpopular at the time, derided by Republicans as a favor for unions, since autoworkers' pensions — in conservatives' view — were favored over dealers and other secured bondholders. Indeed, the Indiana State Police Pension Fund sued to prevent the deal from going forward, but it was rejected by the Supreme Court.

RELATED: Auto politics haunt Romney in NW Ohio

GM and Chrysler both rebounded in the months following the bailout to improve sales and profits, allowing the companies to pay off their loans from the government more quickly than expected. Their success has been heralded ever since by Democrats as a gutsy and successful example of Obama's leadership at the height of the Great Recession.

And since that time, Romney has — at alternating moments — both embraced and rejected central elements of Obama's decision making.

The Republican nominee has argued that it was his original idea, rather than Obama's, to put the auto companies through bankruptcy, though Romney's proposed process would have differed immensely. (Romney's plan wouldn't have necessarily forced GM and Chrysler into liquidation, nor was that what the governor had advocated — contrary to the president's suggestion during this month's debate.)

Romney was most pointedly forced to confront his opposition to the bailout during the Michigan and Ohio primaries in late February and early March. The Michigan native repeatedly called himself a "car guy" while campaigning near the Motor City, and appeared driving a Chrysler in a TV ad.

And Romney took to the editorial page of the Detroit News, where he accused Obama of "crony capitalism" in the bailout and said the companies would have been better off without Obama's intervention.

"Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses, Obama rewarded them," Romney wrote.

FLASHBACK: How much support would Romney have given to automakers?

As with a number of other issues since the primary, Romney, the Republican standard-bearer, has tried to soften the edges of some of his harder-charging rhetoric during the primaries.

"I’m a son of Detroit. I was born in Detroit. My dad was head of a car company. I like American cars. And I would do nothing to hurt the U.S. auto industry. My plan to get the industry on its feet when it was in real trouble was not to start writing checks," Romney said at the third and final debate a week ago against Obama.

The GOP nominee's claim prompted the president to accuse Romney of trying to "airbrush history."

Speaking Monday in Youngstown, Ohio, former President Bill Clinton got in on the action. He said Chrysler "put out a statement sayin' it was the biggest load of bull in the world" in reference of the Jeep-to-China rumors. 

"He ties himself in more knots than a Boy Scout does in a knot-tying contest," Clinton said of Romney.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

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In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

AVON LAKE, OH — Hurricane Sandy's impact spread from the East Coast to Ohio this morning, where Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign announced it was scrapping planned events across the Midwest, while the candidate himself called upon supporters to donate to relief agencies and send prayers to those in the storm's path. 

"On the Eastern Coast of our nation, a lot of people are enduring some very difficult times. Our hearts and our prayers go to them as we think about how tough it's going to be there," Romney told an audience of some 2,500 supporters in a high school gym this morning. "I'd like to ask those of you that are here today to think about  making a contribution to the Red Cross or another relief agency, to be of help if you can in any way  you can imagine to help those who are in harm's way." 

Recommended: Sandy gives unpredictable twist to 2012 election

Romney, whose campaign has suspended fundraising appeals in the afflicted states, also asked his supporters to donate to relief organizations, either through the campaign's infrastructure, or on their own.

"I know our victory centers are making collections of items and cash that we can send along to the Red Cross," Romney said, echoing an email sent by his campaign this morning. "But whether you come to our victory center or just do it with your email, your internet account, do your very best to help."

"We're counting on Ohio," Romney continued. "I know the people of the Atlantic Coast are counting on Ohio and the rest of our states, but I also think the people of the entire nation are counting on Ohio because my guess is, my guess is if Ohio votes me in as President, I'll be the next president of the United States."

Romney's remarks on the storm came at the end of his stump speech here this morning, and are indicative of the delicate balance the GOP challenger must maintain between keeping up a campaign predicated in no small part on criticizing the record of President Barack Obama, and not looking opportunistic or unconcerned about the impact of a potentially devastating weather event affecting a large portion of the country.

Absent from Romney's remarks this morning was his now traditional attack on Obama for running a "small" campaign, focusing instead primarily on his own day-one agenda and five-point plan, along with a promise to work across the aisle should he be elected.

"I am going to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats. I’m going to find common ground. We have to find a way to work with people in the opposition party," Romney said. "Democrats love America. Republicans love America. We can come together."

As Romney spoke, his campaign announced it was canceling a planned event tonight in Wisconsin, and tomorrow's scheduled events in Ohio and Iowa. The campaign also cancelled events in Florida for Romney's running mate Paul Ryan, and said the campaign schedule remains in flux. 

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

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In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

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Updated 12:58 p.m. ET — President Barack Obama urged Americans to heed local officials' warnings about Hurricane Sandy on Monday as his re-election said it would determine the president's campaign schedule on a "day-to-day basis."

The president appeared at the White House and said he was "confident" states and local governments were prepared to weather the megastorm barreling toward the East Coast of the United States, though he cautioned that it could take time to restore transportation and electricity in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Obama said Sandy would be "a slow-moving storm through a wide swath of the country."

"We're confident that the assets are pre-positioned for an effective response in the aftermath of this storm," he added.

The hurricane forced Obama to cut short a trip to Florida and canceled events scheduled for Tuesday. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney followed suit, as he and running mate Paul Ryan canceled most of their events on Monday afternoon and Tuesday.

The storm reshuffled the race for the presidency, just eight days before voters head to the polls. Surrogates for Obama — like former President Bill Clinton — stepped forward in place of the president at campaign events as Obama remained in Washington to handle the storm. In addition to canceling stops in Colorado and Virginia, the White House said Monday that Obama would no longer travel to Wisconsin tomorrow, either. The next campaign events on Obama's schedule are on Wednesday, in Ohio.

Romney canceled an afternoon event in Wisconsin and Ryan would no longer appear in Florida. 

"Governor Romney believes this is a time for the nation and its leaders to come together to focus on those Americans who are in harms way," said Gail Gitcho, Romney's communications director. "We will provide additional details regarding Governor Romney's and Congressman Ryan's schedule when they are available." 

Obama met in the White House situation room in order to be “updated on the latest forecast for Hurricane Sandy and the extensive federal effort underway to support the state and local response to this historic storm," according to press secretary Jay Carney. Multiple cabinet secretaries, many members of the president’s White House staff and the heads of FEMA and the National Hurricane Center will participate in this meeting.

But the president's official duties put his campaign schedule in flux, just as the presidential campaign enters its final phase.

"The president's focus is on the storm and governing the country and making sure our people are safe," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said on a conference call with reporters. He said the president's campaign would take scheduling on a day-by-day basis. 

"We're obviously going to lose a bunch of campaign time, but that's obviously how it has to be, and we'll try to make it up on the back end," added David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign. 

Speaking Monday afternoon at the White House, the president said he wasn't concerned about the potential impact of the storm on voting. 

"I am not worried at this point on the impact on the election," he said. "I'm worried about the impact on families and our first responders."

Clinton took Obama's place at a rally this morning in Wisconsin and was set to join Vice President Joe Biden in Ohio later this afternoon. 

Romney pushed forward with his campaign schedule on Monday, which took him to Ohio early in the day and to Wisconsin later in the day. The Republican's campaign put a hold on its fundraising pitches to voters in states in Hurricane Sandy's path, and urged supporters to remove lawn signs for fear that they might become debris. 

Romney campaign offices also collected donations to the Red Cross, items which its bus was supposed to deliver to storm victims.

"Sandy is another devastating hurricane by all accounts, and a lot of people are going to be facing some real tough times as a result of Sandy's fury. And so if you have the capacity to make a donation to the American Red Cross, you can go online and do that," the former Massachusetts governor told an overflow crowd in Avon Lake, Ohio. "If there are other ways that you can help, please take advantage of them because there will be a lot of people that are going to be looking for help and the people in Ohio have big hearts, so we're expecting you to follow through and help out."

NBC's Shawna Thomas contributed reporting.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

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In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

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CELINA, Ohio – As Hurricane Sandy makes its way up the Eastern Seaboard, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign has decided to not only cancel all events in the storm’s path but also stop sending fundraising appeals in several states that will likely be affected.

The Romney campaign will halt fundraising efforts in North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the duration of the storm, adviser Kevin Madden told reporters following a rally here.

This news comes just a day after Romney himself was forced to cancel stops in the battleground state of Virginia Sunday so that emergency personnel could focus on storm preparations. The Republican presidential nominee headed to Ohio instead, meeting up with his running mate, Paul Ryan, for the conclusion of a two-day bus tour across the Buckeye State.

"Our top concern is safety and security and making sure that people who are in the presumed track of the storm are safe and that we're not taking away from response efforts, that's why we cancelled our events there today," Madden said.

Romney spoke about Hurricane Sandy while in Findlay, Ohio Sunday evening, telling the crowd: "I know that right now some people in the country are a little nervous about a storm about to hit the coast. And our thoughts and prayers are with the people who will find themselves in harm's way."

The campaign announced that Romney's event in Milford, N.H. on Tuesday is now cancelled due to the impending weather.

Ryan also discussed the storm and those in its path at the top of his remarks today.

“Look, first let me start on a slightly different note. Let’s today when we get home put in our prayers the people who are in the east coast in the wake of this big storm that’s coming. Let’s not forget those fellow Americans of ours,” Ryan told a crowd of roughly 2,000 supporters.

Thousands of people have already been ordered to evacuate along the East Coast as Hurricane Sandy begins to make landfall. States of emergency have been declared in nine states and D.C.

Romney-Ryan and Victory offices across Virginia are collecting donations in preparation for storm relief efforts and Madden told reporters the campaign is in constant communication with their regional offices and indicated that the campaign may have to cancel more events, depending on the storm's impact.

“Our folks in headquarters are staying in contact with folks in the states to get the best assessment on the storm and how it’s impacting the states, so we're just continuing to get updated on it,” Madden said.

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Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan sing along with Janna Ryan as the Oakridge Boys perform during a campaign rally at the Marion County Fairgrounds in Marion, Ohio on Sunday.

Ohio's Republican governor said Sunday that private polls show Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney beating President Barack Obama in the all-important battleground state of Ohio just as auto industry politics assume a dominant role in the closing days of the campaign. 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) predicted outright that Romney would win Ohio on "Meet the Press" and, with it, the presidential election — a overall contest which Kasich said wouldn't be that close.

"Right now, I believe we're currently ahead. Internals show us currently ahead," he said, referring to the private polling candidates routinely conduct. "Honestly, I believe that Romney is going to carry Ohio."

The governor's show of confidence comes after a week in which Obama and Romney — along with their respective running mates — barnstormed the Buckeye State in hopes of securing the state's 18 electoral votes, which would greatly enhance either candidate's hopes of winning the presidential election.

A Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News poll released Sunday and conducted Oct. 18-23 showed the two candidates tied at 49 percent apiece among likely voters in the state. Two other public polls earlier in the week, by CNN/ORC and TIME magazine, showed Obama leading by a small margin.

Romney was set to spend Sunday touring the Buckeye State after canceling a series of stops in Virginia due to the impending Hurricane Sandy; Obama will make a quick trip to Youngstown on Monday before returning to Washington to monitor the hurricane. The president canceled planned stops in northern Virginia and Colorado in the first half of this week. 

Both the president and Romney are battling to turn out their supporters to the polls and shake loose the few remaining undecided voters in a handful of swing states. The Romney campaign has claimed that momentum is on their side, a claim which the Obama campaign argues is a bluff. 

The Romney campaign circulated on Sunday several newspaper endorsements — the Des Moines Register and the Cincinnati Enquirer among them — to argue that the Republican ticket had made inroads in crucial swing states. The Obama campaign responded in kind by sending reporters endorsement editorials from the Youngstown Vindicator and the Toledo Blade, both of which referenced the 2009 auto industry bailout as a point in Obama's favor. 

The auto bailout — which Romney had opposed, memorably, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" — has assumed a central role in the closing days of the campaign, especially as the election plays out largely on a Midwestern, industrial and economically-battered playing field. 

RELATED: Auto politics haunt Romney in NW Ohio

Kasich argued that the auto bailout hadn't actually boosted Ohio's economy as much as Obama would have the state's voters think.

"We are thrilled that we have a strong auto industry," he argued, "but it doesn't account for the growth of 112,000 jobs in our state."

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

The Romney campaign also aired a new ad in Ohio touting an endorsement from the right-leaning Detroit News and iconic automan Lee Iacocca, while also making a controversial claim about productions of Jeeps in China.

"Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China," the ad says in reference to plans by the auto company to build a new production facility in China to sell vehicles in that country. 

The ad is accurate but plays to misinformation that spread earlier this week — partly because Romney had previously voiced the claims — suggesting that Chrysler was planning to move production of all Jeeps to China. The automaker has strongly disputed those reports, though they could have an impact in battleground corners of Ohio like Toledo, a major hub for Jeep production in North America. 

First Read: Romney's Ohio fortunes tied to softening bailout stance

The governors of two other battleground states — John Hickenlooper (D) of Colorado and Scott Walker (R) of Wisconsin —  relied on more traditional fare to make the case for and against their candidates. 

"What are those deductions and tax credits he's going to get rid of?" Hickenlooper asked of Romney's tax reform plan, seizing on the former Massachusetts governor's refusal to specify which loopholes and deductions he would eliminate to finance his proposed tax cuts. 

And Walker, whose contentious collective bargaining reforms sparked a standoff with his state legislature and a recall election which he won, argued that Romney has a track record of working in a bipartisan manner. 

"He's proven that he can do it in a state like Massachusetts," Walker said. 

But neither Walker nor Hickenlooper seemed as confident as Kasich, who predicted that the fate of Ohio's electoral votes — and the election — would be known early on election night. 

"I'm not sure the election's going to be as close as what everybody is talking about today," he said. 

ZANESVILLE, OH – With a mere 10 days before Election Day, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan kicked off a two-day bus tour in Ohio, arguably the biggest battleground state of all.

"As Ohio goes, so goes America. I think you know that," Ryan told the crowd inside Zanesville High School at his second stop on the ‘Victory In Ohio’ Bus Tour. 

Related: Obama campaign: Romney momentum narrative not grounded in fact

Mitt Romney’s running mate is helping illustrate the GOP ticket’s final argument going into Election Day on his 400-mile tour of Ohio.

"As you look at the closing arguments, we’re talking about what it’s going to take to get people back to work. We’re talking about the kind of leadership that Mitt Romney has provided throughout his life, at running at problems to solve problems,” Ryan said shortly after the “Momentum” web video played on screens in the gymnasium. “There have been hundreds of millions of dollars of negative advertising from the spring on trying to disqualify Mitt Romney. But what we learned at the debates is that this is a man of integrity, this is a man of principle, this is a man who knows how to create jobs, this is a man we would be proud to call our president. 

The seven-term Wisconsin congressman, who attended college at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, also tried to make a personal appeal to Ohioans on a rainy Saturday in Big 10 Country.

"We come from Big 10 country," Ryan said to applause at Gradall Industries in New Philadelphia, Ohio. "I'm just happy the Badgers and Buckeyes play after the election."

The latest TIME poll shows President Barack Obama with a 5-point lead in the Buckeye State, ahead of Romney 49 percent to 44 percent.

Both the Romney and Obama camps have been campaigning in the state frequently plus being up on the airwaves with ads in order to try and secure Ohio’s 18 electoral votes. Obama beat Sen. John McCain in Ohio during the 2008 election by 4 percent points.

Speaking before nearly 1,000 people at his first stop of the day in New Philadelphia, Ryan tried to fire up the crowd in the homestretch of the campaign: “The debate is going to last for about 10 more days. The choice is yours on November the sixth. Think about November the seventh. Think about how you will feel the next morning when you wake up and turn on the TV….Are we gonna wait four more years before we have real change or are we just gonna wait ten days? We can turn this around.”

Ryan has three more events Saturday in Circleville, Yellow Springs and Sabina. He has another three events Sunday. As a result of the impending weather conditions on the East Coast, Romney will join Ryan for the final event of the bus tour tomorrow evening at the fairgrounds in Marion, Ohio.

FAIRVIEW PARK, OH -- Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, the chairman of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign in the Buckeye State, said Friday that it would be tough for Romney to win the election without carrying Ohio.

Al Behrman / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, shakes hands with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, after Portman introduced Romney at a campaign stop at Jet Machine, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, in Cincinnati.

"I'm feeling the pressure not just because I'm chairing the effort here in Ohio, but mostly because I feel the pressure for our country and what's going to happen over the next four years," Portman told NBC News on Friday while traveling between campaign stops for Romney. "If we don't win Ohio, it's tough to see us winning the election nationally. It's possible, but it's very difficult."

Most of the recent attention the Ohio senator has received has centered on the key role he played in Romney's debate preparation and how close he came to being chosen as the GOP vice presidential nominee. But before he took on any of those roles, he was tapped by Romney to lead the former Massachusetts governor's effort in the key battleground state.

"We're doing better in Cleveland, and Cincinnati and Columbus and Toledo where we have some of the numbers of the absentee and early voting, we're doing better than we expected we would," he told volunteers gathered at the Avon Lake Victory Center. "We're exceeding our targets."

Portman told the crowd that internal Romney polling shows the state is a dead heat with with 11 days to go until Election Day. He's making five stops in North east Ohio today before appearing at a rally with Romney and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan tonight. At each stop, the man who ran a successful statewide campaign just two years earlier, said the grassroots effort will make the difference in this state.

It's a difference, Portman feels, that will give Romney the edge here on Election Day.

"I believe the Obama campaign probably has a pretty effective grassroots infrastructure, but I dont think you can compete with volunteers who really have their heart in it and are fired up for all the right reasons," he said.

With just 11 days to go in the presidential election, ad spending has topped $900 million and is on pace to surpass $1 billion.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

US President Barack Obama arrives on stage for a campaign event October 24, 2012 at Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa. President Obama set off Wednesday on an eight state, 7,660 mile, 40-hour tour, in a show of confidence and commitment in battlegrounds that will decide the election. Thirteen days before he asks voters for a second term, Obama's through-the-night, coast-to-coast trip will take in six of the most contested swing states in his toss-up race with Republican Mitt Romney. The struggle in Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Virginia and Ohio will decide which of the rivals masses the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

First Read reported just nine days ago that spending on radio and television ads had crossed the $800 million threshold.

Total spending, including the campaigns and outside groups, has now climbed to $907 million, according to an NBC analysis of data provided by ad-buying firm SMG Delta.

Ohio is now the top state in overall ad spending at $185 million, surpassing Florida which is at $182 million.

Just this week, $84 million in ads have been booked, a record for any single week this election. But next week already tops this one with $86 million in ad buys already booked. Ohio tops all states with $18 million of that money this week and $20 million next.

“Team Romney,” the campaign and outside groups supporting him, are far outpacing “Team Obama” this week -- $54 million to $30 million.

In overall spending, Team Romney is outpacing Team Obama $531 million to $375 million.

Here are the top 10 states overall:

• Ohio $185 million
• Florida $182 million
• Virginia $144 million
• Colorado $78 million
• Iowa $71 million
• North Carolina $69 million
• NV $55 million
• NH $49 million
• WI $40 million
• PA $19 million
• MI $15 million

CINCINNATI, OH -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he was the candidate of "big change" at the outset of three-event bus tour of battleground Ohio on Thursday.

Slideshow: On the Trail

The former Massachusetts governor cast President Barack Obama as a figure of the "status quo," and made clear that the Republican ticket represented "big change" by contrast -- repeating that phrase throughout his speech.

"This is a critical time for our country and the choice of paths we chose will have an enormous impact. We have huge challenges," Romney said, ticking off issues ranging from job creation to education. "These challenges are big challenges. This election is therefore a big choice. And America wants to see big changes and we’re gonna bring big changes to get America stronger again.”

Recommended: First Thoughts: Examining Ohio's key counties (and margins)

Romney repeated his mantra of "big change" more than 10 times in his roughly 30 minute remarks, hammering the point home again and again and melding it into his broader critique of Obama.

"The Obama campaign doesn't have a plan," Romney said. "The Obama campaign is slipping because he's talking about smaller and smaller things despite the fact that America has such huge challenges and that this is such an opportunity for America, and that's why on November 6th I'm counting on Ohio to vote for big change!"

Al Behrman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at Jet Machine, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, in Cincinnati.

A senior Romney adviser said that the focus on "big change" would continue in the race's final days.

"Highlighting our campaign's focus on big issues and contrasting that with the smallness of President Obama's campaign will be something we make clear with voters today and through the rest of the campaign," Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden told NBC.

“Here’s the ‘big change’ Mitt Romney is offering: going back to the same failed policies that caused the economic crisis and empowering the extreme voices in his party like Richard Mourdock," Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said in a statement.

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

Romney also continued to highlight how his policies might be better for individual families than Obama's,

"This election is not about me. It’s not about the Republican party. It’s about America. And it’s about your family," Romney said after running through a series of scenarios like caring for an aging relative or getting a good education for a child, and how those experiences would differ under a second Obama term or a Romney presidency.

Related: Obama and Romney project early voting bravado in battleground Ohio

The GOP standard-bearer also launched into an extended riff this morning about how a voter's hypothetical daughter -- a play toward prized women swing voters -- might suffer from Obama's proposals.

Interviews with female voters at Romney's event suggested this strategy could be part of the right prescription to close the gender gap with women in Ohio.

"I don't think that women are any different from any other voters in particular, and I think that what women are concerned about is they have a dual concern," explained Romney supporter Emilia Pater, a homemaker from Cincinnati who attended this morning's rally. "They're concerned about the economy and their families, because most women are caretakers of their families and they are the ones that are looking toward the future and saying what's going to be left for my children?"

Updated 12:56 p.m. - Each presidential campaign's bravado about who has momentum in the closing stretch of the campaign has extended to early voting, with Democrats and Republicans each claiming an advantage Thursday in the battleground state of Ohio.

President Barack Obama's campaign said early voting in counties and precincts which Obama won in 2008 is humming along at a better pace than that last election. Moreover, Obama national field director Jeremy Bird wrote, early voting in Democratic portions of Ohio is exceeding early voting in Republican corners of the Buckeye State.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets supporters during a campaign rally on Oct. 25, 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (EDITORS NOTE: Image was created using an iPhone and processed with the Instagram application)

Republicans countered with a memo arguing that most of the early voters touted by the Obama campaign were likely to vote Democratic anyway, thereby eating into their Election Day turnout.

"In states where Democrats have more early votes (IA, OH, NV) they are investing significant resources in turning out “high propensity voters” – those who have voted in either 3 or 4 of the past 4 general elections," a Republican National Committee memo argued Thursday.

The RNC said that there were about a million Democratic voters, of whom, about 43 percent had requested an absentee ballot or had already voted. By contrast, the RNC said there were over 1.3 million Republicans in Ohio, only about 27 percent of whom had voted early or requested an absentee ballot.

"This means there are 380,022 more Republican high propensity voters who haven’t voted early in the electorate," the memo said. "In contrast, Democrats are diluting their ability to perform on Election Day."

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

Lost in the arguments are a few details, most importantly being that Ohio doesn't formally register voters by party. A "Republican" or "Democrat," for purposes of each campaign's accounting, refers to whichever primary in which an Ohioan recently voted.

"When the Romney campaign boasts that Republicans are out-performing their voter registration, they forget to tell you that Ohio doesn’t have party registration," Bird wrote. "And because Republicans had a competitive primary this year and Democrats did not, Republicans naturally have a 460,000-person edge this year among past primary voters—what Romney’s campaign is disingenuously referring to as 'registered Republicans.'"

The reality of the situation probably lies somewhere in between both campaigns' claims.

In Ohio itself, Obama leads Romney, 60 percent to 30 percent, among those who have already voted, according to a TIME magazine poll released Wednesday.

For some voters, though, there's still some appeal to waiting on line on the day of the election itself and voting.

"I think a lot of people want to vote the day of the election. They don't want to vote early. I don't know why. I'm doing it as well. I think they like the camaraderie of it," said Kim Pedigo, a substitute teacher from Cincinnati and Romney supporter who attended the GOP nominee's rally this morning. "I like to be there at the poll. I like to see what's happening. Its fun."

Both Obama and Romney have stressed early voting in their campaign appearances, and on Thursday, Obama himself will be the first president to make an early vote in person when he travels to Chicago to cast his ballot.

Obama would qualify as the kind of "high-propensity" voter that Republicans argue Democrats have targeted in a state like Ohio, at the expense of their Election Day turnout. The Obama campaign argued earlier this week that it's doing something different: urging unlikely voters to vote early, so that it can more efficiently target the remaining low-propensity voters on Nov. 6.

These factors make it even more difficult to divine which way Ohio -- arguably the most important swing state this election, given its potential to significantly ease either Obama or Romney's path to the White House -- is trending.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod might have best summed up these dueling claims about the early vote in a conference call earlier this week touting the Obama campaign's own organizational prowess.

"We'll know who is bluffing and who isn't in two weeks," he said.

NBC's Garrett Haake contributed from Ohio.

CLEVELAND, OH -- Appearing in an economically hard-hit corner of the crucial battleground state of Ohio, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan attempted to put a softer edge on the GOP ticket’s plans to reform social programs.

In one of his only major policy speeches of the campaign, the Wisconsin congressman sought to widen the GOP ticket's appeal beyond Republicans and to Independents and Democrats -- just as President Barack Obama's campaign warns that GOP nominee Mitt Romney's proposals would wreck the social safety net and stunt upward mobility.

“Upward mobility is the central promise of life in America. But right now, America’s engines of upward mobility aren’t working the way they should,” Ryan told the crowd at Cleveland State University. “Mitt Romney and I are running because we believe that Americans are better off in a dynamic, free-enterprise-based economy that fosters economic growth, opportunity and upward mobility instead of a stagnant, government-directed economy that stifles job creation and fosters government dependency.”

Slideshow: On the Trail

The speech hit on policy more than politics, evinced by the fact that Ryan mentioned Obama's name only once in his speech.

“Mitt and I have a message that’s bigger than party. We are speaking to all Americans in this campaign,” Ryan said in front of nearly 600 people, adding, “Wherever we are in life, whether we are rich or poor, black, brown, or white, American by chance or by choice, we are one nation, rising or falling together.”

He continued: “Whatever your political party, this nation cannot afford four more years like the last four years.  We need a real recovery,” Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said with both American and Ohio flags lining the stage behind him.

The seven-term Wisconsin congressman referenced his former mentor, Jack Kemp, in the speech and said that a Romney administration, if elected, would do everything it could to help the 46 million Americans in poverty today.

“In this war on poverty, poverty is winning. We deserve better. We deserve a clear choice for a brighter future,” he said, speaking off a teleprompter.

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

The list of topics Ryan on which touched didn’t stop there, extending into themes he discusses regularly on the campaign trail -- but counched differently for the more formal speech. He also included standard Romney agenda items, such as "urgent" reforms of the school system, repealing Obama's health care law, and protecting religious liberties.

“Look, I am a proud Republican,” the GOP VP nominee said. “Our party does a good job of speaking to the part of the American Dream that involves taking what you’re passionate about and making a successful living from it. But part of what makes America great is that when we don’t succeed, we look out for one another through our communities. My party has a vision for making our communities stronger – but we don’t always do a good job of laying out that vision.”

Wednesday’s speech in the Buckeye State was a step toward trying to help better illustrate that vision.

"In a Cleveland speech today less than two weeks before the election, Congressman Ryan will attempt to hide the truth about Mitt Romney’s policies," responded Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Obama campaign. "But one last-minute speech won’t be able to mask the truth: the Romney-Ryan approach would close ladders to the middle class with a budget that, according to one expert, would “likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation’s history)."

The last major policy speech on the Republican side came back on Oct. 8, when Romney spoke in the battleground state of Virginia on foreign policy. Ryan’s event in Swanton, OH that day was delayed to watch his running mate’s address.  Today, shortly after Ryan took the stage in Ohio, Romney started his campaign rally simultaneously in Reno, NV.

MARION, Ohio -- Vice President Joe Biden assumed the role of jokester-in-chief on Wednesday in Ohio, alternating between a policy lecture and an amateur comedy gig in ridiculing the Republican presidential ticket.

Appearing in Ohio at the end of a three-day trip, Biden's campaign pitch offered comfort and glee for the base and occasional fodder for the opposition.

There was the assurance to a crying baby that Mitt Romney wouldn't win the election. "It's okay. He's not going to get elected," he mock-soothingly announced as a child in the audience wailed. "God, I shouldn't be scaring children like this!"

There was the groaner understandable only to aficionados of Buckeye State geography. Relating that he's traveled from the phonetic "Dayton, Ohio" to "Marion, Ohio," he cracked "I didn't think I was marrying y'all!"

And there was the slip-up quickly picked apart by Republicans familiar with Biden's occasional history of locality-based missteps. Lamenting the political ads he's seen in his travels, he said the commercials were saturating airwaves "here in Iowa." (That prompted a release from Boston offering Team Romney's "Response to Vice President Biden in Iowa ... Uh... Ohio.")

As the closing weeks of the election loom, Biden's speeches have become must-watch fodder for journalists - who often tweet highlights as they watch live video feeds from their offices - and for Biden foes eager to catch one of his famed rhetorical goof-ups.

Biden's rally of over a thousand supporters in a high school gymnasium disappointed neither.

Speaking of Romney and Ryan's tax plans, Biden related a teenage memory of wanting to hang out "on the corner" with troublemaking kids, only to be stopped by his mother's warning.

"She'd look at me and she'd say, 'Joey, if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck!'" he declared.

While wasn't entirely clear how Biden transitioned from effective tax rates to poultry, the crowd loved it.

"Man," he concluded. "This is one quackin' duck!"