President Barack Obama

A new CNN/ORC poll of likely voters shows President Barack Obama leading Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the crucial state of Ohio with less than two weeks before Election Day:

According to a CNN/ORC International survey released Friday, President Barack Obama holds a four point advantage over Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the contest for Ohio's much-fought-over 18 electoral votes, reports The Ticket.

Fifty-percent of likely voters questioned in the poll say they are backing the president, with 46% supporting the former Massachusetts governor. Obama's four-point advantage is within the survey's sampling error.

The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International from October 23-25, with 1,009 Ohio adults, including 896 registered voters and 741 likely voters, questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Before the poll's release, Romney's Ohio state chairman, Sen. Rob Portman, had stopped just short of saying Ohio would be a must-win for the Republican challenger.

"If we don't win Ohio, it's tough to see us winning the election nationally," Portman had told NBC News.