As of August, the state of Ohio says about 601,000 Ohioans are out of work. That's an attractive voting block to candidates in any of the tight state races. An AFL-CIO community group called Working America has focused its efforts on identifying jobless workers and getting them to vote. Ashley Keith at the Cleveland Working America office says this week the group starts hosting house parties and postcard writing sessions for unemployed voters.
Ashley Keith: If we can get the people to come together and vote together as a block in their own interest and get people in office who would be willing to support job creation and solve the job crisis.
Working America also has local offices in Columbus and Cincinnati. John Green, the director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute, says while the unemployed are an attractive voting block they can be very difficult to reach.
John Green: Many unemployed voters are very discouraged. Many have been out of work for a long time and they're very busy trying to find a job and keep body and soul together and sometimes a little bit of apathy sets in. So there may be a lot of unemployed voters that simply aren't going to be active in the fall.
Green says unemployed voters could also be angry and take out their frustration on the party in power.