NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio -- After contests in more than 30 states, Hillary Clinton's teetering presidential hopes may depend on just one: Ohio.
Barack Obama has erased Clinton's double-digit lead in this state heading into Tuesday's crucial primary. But no one is predicting an Obama blowout.
"Ohio is different," said Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, the most prominent Clinton backer in the state.
Exactly how different won't be clear until the votes are counted here, and in Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont on the same day, which could decide the Democratic nomination.
There are signs that Ohio may yet swing behind Obama, once last-minute deciders make up their minds. At least one recent statewide poll showed a virtual dead heat; others gave Clinton a slight edge.
Winning the nation's seventh-most-populous state may well allow Clinton to keep going, though the delegate math remains daunting and even her husband has said that she needs to win Texas, too. Still, her campaign has started shaping an argument for pressing ahead at least until Pennsylvania, a place quite similar to Ohio, holds the next big Democratic primary on April 22.
Clinton has lost 11 straight contests since Feb. 5 and fallen significantly behind Obama in major national polls. But a number of factors could help her eke out a victory in Ohio, according to party strategists and independent analysts.
"It's very tempting to say Ohio's had a hard time with change," said Bill Burges, a Democratic consultant in Cleveland.
Vacant storefronts and shuttered factories are familiar sights in this state, hit hard by manufacturing job losses over the past quarter-century and with a jobless rate above the national average. Economic woes haven't led to a massive exodus; Ohio has a higher portion of residents living in the state where they were born than any major state that's already voted this year.
"If there is any state that needs change at the national level, it's this one," said former Democratic National Chairman David Wilhelm, who managed Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign but recently endorsed Obama.
But Wilhelm, who runs a rural-development venture capital firm in Athens, Ohio, acknowledged that "Ohioans have a degree of skepticism about new things. ... This is not a state that gravitates toward celebrity."
Then there is the matter of "stickiness." Ohioans are "sticky," he said. "It's not easy to move them. ... People here are reluctant to move too quickly."
