Obama in Trouble in Ohio and Pennsylvania

He needs those two states if he's to have any chance of re-election:

New polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania indicate that President Barack Obama has his work cut out for him to keep the two key battleground states in the Democratic column in next year's presidential election.

According to a Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday morning, 53 percent of Ohio voters disapprove of the job the president's doing in office, with 42 percent saying they approve of how Obama's handling his duties. The 42 percent approval rating matches the president's all-time low in Quinnipiac polling for Ohio. The survey also indicates that by a 51 to 43 percent margin, Buckeye State voters say the president doesn't deserve to be re-elected in 2012.

In hypothetical general election matchups against the top two Republican presidential candidates, the poll indicates things are pretty much all tied up, with Obama holding a 44 to 41 percent margin over Texas Gov. Rick Perry and holding a 44 to 42 percent margin over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Both margins are within the poll's sampling error.

In a sign of just how important the state is to the White House, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden made four visits combined to the state this month, to lobby for the president's jobs package.

The key is how the voters will view the eventual GOP challenger compared to Obama, but with no sign that the economy is likely to improve much...or at all... in the next year, those states are very much in play.

As is Florida. And North Carolina. And many other states that Obama won in 2008.