Boehner predicts Romney win in Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 5 (UPI) —

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio expressed confidence Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney would win the state despite the auto bailout issue.

"Romney is doing well in Ohio. You know, polls don’t decide elections, voters do," Boehner told CNN exclusively Sunday, later admitting "the auto bailout may help the president in Ohio a little."

"But when you look at polling, it wouldn’t indicate that that’s had much of a factor at all," Boehner said of the auto bailout. "Enthusiasm is on our side."

Several national polls indicate President Obama has a slight lead over Romney in Ohio, one of a small number of battleground states.

Ohio is home to several auto manufacturing plants

The Romney campaign recently aired ads in Ohio intimating General Motors Co. used funds from the bailout to hire more workers in China than in the United States, and that Chrysler would move its Jeep operations to China. Auto industry leaders joined Democratic leaders in denouncing the ads as false and misleading.

Boehner told CNN it would be possible for Romney to oust Obama from the White House without winning the Buckeye State, but "it gets complicated."

"The easiest path for victory for Mitt Romney is to win here in Ohio," Boehner said. "And you know when you start to see Romney’s campaign being competitive in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin, it tells me — it reinforces I’ll say, reinforces with me that he’s doing well here."