President Barack Obama said if students at Ohio State aren’t sick of him visiting campus yet, they might see him again before November.
In a Tuesday afternoon conference call with student journalists from across the nation, Obama said the youth vote in the presidential election in November will be crucial.
“The choice that you all face could not be bigger or more sequential,” he said. “I see the kind of changes you guys are able to bring about.”
Obama said that many of the changes his administration was able to bring about, such as health care reform and ending the war in Iraq, were possible because of the youth vote.
“All these things happened because of you,” he said.
Obama said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who officially became the Republican presidential nominee at the Republican Convention in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, is hoping young people won’t turn out to vote like they did in 2008.
“They’re hoping that young people, even if they don’t vote for them, don’t vote at all,” Obama said.
Romney said the Obama campaign was not winning over college-aged students.
“I don’t see how a young American can vote for, well, can vote for a Democrat,” Romney said in a speech at the University of Chicago in March.
Romney spoke in Powell, a suburb about 30 minutes from campus, on Saturday, to a crowd of about 5,000. He has not yet been to OSU, but he did make a stop at Otterbein University in April.
Obama visited Columbus Aug. 21 for a speech at Capital University to a crowd of about 3,300, but not before he stopped in for lunch at Sloopy’s Diner at the Ohio Union.
The youth vote in Ohio is especially important, Obama said in response to a question from The Lantern, which is one reason he has visited OSU’s campus four times in two years.
“If Ohio is doing well, then America is gonna do well,” he said.
But Obama said his lunch stop last week would not be the last chance OSU students would have to see him before the Nov. 6 election.
“I expect that if you’re not completely tired of me, you’re gonna see me in Ohio State again,” Obama said. “In fact, I think I’ve got a buckeye in my pocket that somebody gave me the last time I was there. I figure that’s good luck going into the election.”

Kristen Mitchell and Michael Periatt contributed to this story.