Presidential Polls 2012: Swing States Ohio, Iowa Still Tied Between Obama, Romney

With a little more than one week before Election Day, a handful of swing states are quickly taking center stage in the presidential race and are likely to become the deciding factor in who wins the White House.

Most of those states are still hotly contested and could go to either President Barack Obama or Republican nominee Mitt Romney on Nov. 6.

One such state is Ohio, which offers 18 electoral votes — a small hand compared to high-value states like California or Texas — and may turn out to be the single most important state in the 2012 presidential election.

Obama and Romney are in a dead head in the Buckeye State, with each candidate getting support from 48 percent of registered voters there, according to data from national polling firm Rasmussen Reports. Of the remaining respondents surveyed by Rasmussen, 2 percent plan to vote for a different candidate and 3 percent are still undecided about how they will case their ballot on Election Day.

Even The New York Times has identified Ohio as a critical part of this campaign. In his Five Thirty Eight politics blog, Times columnist Nate Silver wrote that the Times has been running thousands of Electoral College simulations every day, and 95 percent of the time, the candidate who wins Ohio wins the entire election.

"Whether you call Ohio a 'must-win' is a matter of semantics, but its essential role in the Electoral College should not be hard to grasp," Silver wrote.

Another important swing state is Iowa, which offers six electoral voters to whichever candidate carries the state on Nov. 6.

The situation in Iowa is just about the same as that of Ohio, according to Rasmussen data. Both Obama and Romney have support from 48 percent of registered voters in Iowa, with 1 percent planning to vote for another candidate and 2 percent still undecided.