Westerville, Ohio (AP) — Slipping in states that could sink his presidential bid, Republican Mitt Romney declared Wednesday that “I care about the people of America” and can do more than President Barack Obama to improve their lives. In an all-day Ohio duel, Obama scoffed that a challenger who calls half the nation “victims” was unlikely to be of much help.

Romney’s approach reflected what he is up against: a widening Obama lead in polls in key states such as Ohio, the backlash from a leaked video in which he disparages Obama supporters as government-dependent victims, and a campaign imperative to make his policy plans more plain.

The day’s setting was Ohio, where Obama’s momentum has seemed to be growing. It’s also a state no Republican has won the White House without carrying.

Romney went after working-class voters outside Columbus and Cleveland before rolling to Toledo. Early voting has already begun in more than two dozen other states.

For Romney, in his appearances and in a new TV ad in which he appeals straight to the camera, it was time for plain talk to contrast himself with Obama.

“There are so many people in our country who are hurting right now. I want to help them. I know what it takes,” Romney told the crowd in Westerville. “I care about the people of America, and the difference between me and Barack Obama is I know what to do.”

That message so late in the campaign — a presidential nominee declaring his concern for all the people of the country — was part of his widening effort to rebound from his caught-on-video comments at a fundraiser.

In those comments, made last May but only recently revealed, Romney said “47 percent of the people” pay no federal income tax, will vote for Obama no matter what, are victims, think the government must care for them and do not “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

New opinion polls, conducted after the video became public, show Obama opening up apparent leads over Romney in battleground states, including Ohio and Virginia. And majorities of voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania say Romney’s policies would favor the rich over the middle class or the poor.

Specifically in Ohio, two surveys show the president crossing the 50 percent mark among likely voters. A Washington Post poll found Obama ahead 52 percent to 44 percent among those most likely to turn out, and a Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll showed a 10-point Obama lead among definite voters.

Romney was showing signs of picking up his pace.

He scheduled a blizzard of interviews with ABC, CBS and NBC, his second round of broadcast network appearances in three days after weeks of ignoring their requests. He also did interviews Tuesday with Fox News and CNN.

The new Romney TV ad, at 60 seconds, is a longer and softer approach in which he speaks about people struggling to pay for food and gas with falling incomes.

At a factory in Bedford Heights, Romney appeared on a stage surrounded by visual evidence of Ohio’s manufacturing base — giant coils of steel wire, metal beams, yellow “caution” signs — and spoke as machines whirred in the background. He appeared with Mike Rowe, an everyman TV personality and pitchman.

The Romney campaign has started setting up flat-screen TV monitors at its events to screen a video about his personal and business story. It was first aired at the Republican National Convention as a way to introduce him to America but went unseen by most viewers because it did not run during prime-time coverage.

Romney also focused Wednesday on interest paid on the national debt, a subject he hasn’t regularly discussed in his standard campaign speech. His comments came after a Washington Post poll showed the federal debt and deficit are the one set of issues where he has an advantage over Obama with likely voters.

Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, took a sharper approach. He told radio host Sean Hannity that Obama was using hollow tactics to paint his opponents as evil.

“He’s basically trying to say ‘If you want any security in your life stick with me. If you go with these Republicans they’re going to feed you to the wolves. It’s going to be a dog-eat-dog society,'” Ryan said.

In recent weeks, Romney has lost his polling edge on the economy generally, with more people saying they now trust Obama to fix the nation’s economic woes.