a suicide bomber. new developments in the probe into a deadly terror attack. wolf blitzer is off today. i'm candy crowley. and you're in "the situation room." the battle for the white house now centered in the state of ohio. president obama paid yet another visit to what both campaigns see as a must-win state. and today the president came armed with a new report on tax policy that he used to hammer away at mitt romney. our cnn white house correspondent, dan lothian, is traveling with the president. dan, the president pretty much could take up citizenship in ohio at this point. >> reporter: that's right. he really could. he was right here in akron almost a month ago. it was part of his bus tour. and since he announced his re-election bid last spring, the president has been to this state about a dozen or so times. this is really a crucial state not only for the president but also for mitt romney. and today the president was going after his opponent on his tax plan saying they would be bad for the middle class. but the president also came under fire on two fronts, for proposed defense budget cuts and also for the auto bailout. >> carol? >> yes. >> reporter: it's standard operating procedure on the campaign trail, drop in for burgers or sweets. a photo-op meant to reinforce the president's message, that he's looking out for hard working americans and small business owners. and his opponent, mitt romney's policies will only benefit the very rich. >> folks making $3 million a year or more would get a quarter of a million-dollar tax cut. >> reporter: to drive that point home, the president touted a new report by the tax policy center. it didn't specifically analyze romney's plan, but found that similar proposals benefit high income families and increase the tax burden on the middle class. >> does that sound like a good plan for economic growth? does that sound like a plan you can afford? >> reporter: the romney campaign that sent its bus to circle the president's event in akron dismissed the report as another liberal study and blamed the president's failed policies for the economy. and they took another shot at the president's auto bailout releasing a new ad in a state where one out of every eight jobs is tied to the auto industry. >> the dream that we've worked for and so hard for is gone. >> and if you still believe in me like i believe in you -- >> reporter: but in campaign ads and on the trail, the president routinely takes credit fer rescuing the auto industry and saving hundreds of thousands of jobs. it wasn't just autos in the cross hairs on this visit, but airplanes. air force one touched down at the national guard base in mansfield, home to the 179th air lift wing and the c-27 cargo plane. defense budget cuts threaten the planes' future and this base's mission. in a statement republican ohio senator rob portman said "these o h1n1s must be pretty frustrated to see the president drop in town and fail to give them a straight answer to end plans to end their important mission." if this moves forward, candy, yesterday when white house spokesman jay carney was asked about this, he seemed unaware of the issue. today in the gaggle aboard air force one on the way here to ohio, jay carney said that the reason for this was because of redundancy with the aircraft. but the president was committed to finding another mission for the unit there. candy. >> dan lothian, people watching how every dime is spent of government money at this point. thanks so much. the president's visit comes as polling shows him ahead of mitt romney in ohio and florida. it's hard to get more critical than that. the "new york times" survey gives mr. obama a six-point lead in both states when voters are asked who they'd vote for if the election was held today. more with cnn political analyst gloria borger. six points certainly is a pretty big lead given what these polls have been for so long. >> yeah. >> what's changed here? >> it's also significant, candy, because it's among likely voters, not just registered voters. so you're narrowing the pool to a certain degree. so it's very important. there are some real signals for mitt romney that he has to pay attention to. first of all, he's trailing with women. women are so important. in the state of ohio president obama is ahead with women by 21 points. generally mitt romney can compensate for that by doing well with men. and he's not doing as well with men as he should be if he's going to makeup for that large gender gap. also the president's plan to let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire is very, very popular with people in these battleground states. and then there's another issue that looms very large for mitt romney. and let's take a look at it. that's whether he cares about the average person. and if you take a look at this and you see does mitt romney care? 42% say he does in florida. 38% in ohio. but 49% say mitt romney does not care about the average person and 55% in ohio. that notion that he doesn't care about you or your problems is something that's been dogging him throughout this campaign. he clearly hasn't been able to shake that. >> right. it's the relatability issue. >> right. >> does he understand you and your problems? which is what elections are about. explain the head scratcher to me when which candidate seen at best at helping people. >> take a look at this number. i think it shows you that people don't really -- they're not really thrilled with either of these fellows. if elected, do you think romney or obama would help or hurt your own personal financial situation? and if you look at it, they're pretty much tied there. people believe that obama would hurt 38%, romney 37%, help, both 26%. no different at all for both of them, 34%. that was kind of stunning to me actually, because what it says to me is that maybe the negative ads are canceling each other out and it's a pox on all your houses. and people are saying, you know what, i may not like president obama, but i'm not sure mitt romney's going to be that much better. and don't forget, mitt romney's whole big spiel is the economy. and these people are saying, you know, six in one, half a dozen in the other on that. >> maybe people are thinking the government can't help me. >> right. that's right. >> neither one of these guy ks actually do it. >> and maybe they're turned off and won't turn out to vote. that's another possibility. >> that would be a problem for both of them actually. >> yes. >> so tell me about whether there's anything in there that shows that they're liking either one of these candidates. >> well, when you look at the likability, and the question is, do you view the candidates favorably? and president obama has reached the 50% mark in florida, 51% in ohio. romney significantly below him. and it's not as if people are overwhelmingly approving of the president, but 50% is really important. and also when people like you, candy, i think they're more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt as the leader. so that has always been the president's edge over mitt romney. he has to get those likability numbers up. he'll try and do it at the convention when he tries to tell people who he is, what motivates him and why he cares so much about the country. that's what happens at conventions. but at this point they're still waiting for an answer. >> and if your likability figure -- if you're looking at going i don't think either of these guys help me, it kind of matters which one you like. >> right. they still give romney some better scores on the economy generally. but on my personal financial situation, if you don't really think there's a dime's worth of difference between either of these folks, then you're going to say, okay, who do i feel more comfortable with as the leader? that could become more important. >> gloria borger, chief political analyst, thank you. >> sure. we are following developments on capitol hill where the house will vote any time on dueling proposals set to expire at the end of the year. dana bash is on capitol hill for us. dana, we know republicans have the vote to pass a one-year extension across the board all of the bush tax cuts. democrats don't have the votes for their plan to extend it just to the middle class. so i'm going to take a wild guess, this is just politics? >> reporter: it is, candy. i know you're having trouble standing still because you're so surprised by that. to be fair, just like it was just politics when the senate democrats did the same thing last week, passed their proposal, which of course is to just extend the bush era tax cuts for the middle class. the reason it's just politics is because neither side has the votes to make this become law right now. but as far as republicans go, who of course run the house of representatives, they're doing this now just before they leave for a month-long recess to campaign for re-election, all of them, because they want to really hit this heart against democrats. speaker john boehner was just on the house floor. he put it this way, summing it up saying raising taxes at this point in the economy is a big mistake. and they already have 89 democrats targeted. those 89 democrats voted two years ago to extend the bush-era tax cuts for two years many of them said because the economy was bad. and republicans point out over and over that the economy seems to be worse now. >> we know that house republicans are holding this because obviously they think it's to their political advantage to be on the record as extending all the bush tax cuts. what do democrats think, if anything, they'll gain out of this vote? >> reporter: it's interesting. they're not running from this. in fact, they're running towards this politically because they argue on the democratic side that they think that they are right when it comes to the policy goal here. they say that that is reflected in the public opinion polls, which according to many we've seen they are correct. and the public opinion polls show that most people, especily independent voters, want to extend just those for the middle class. and they also feel that they are able to really hit republicans for wanting to protect the rich. and in fact i was just e-mailing with somebody at the democratic campaign committee, the folk who is are in charge of getting democrats elected, and they say they already have some online ads ready to go in 23 districts against republicans for, as i said, trying to protect the rich for voting against just an extension on the middle class tax cuts. >> our dana bash on capitol hill. not much policy going on there, but lots of politics. thanks, dana. when we come back, we will have a new report. we'll be talking to someone at the san antonio airport. as we told you before, a bomb threat was called into that airport some time ago. it's been evacuated. incoming planes have been told to move to places far away from the airport. there are people on the tarmac of course not being allowed to go into the facilities. so we will get an update on that. plus, a top democrat says mitt romney basically paid no taxes for over a decade. a serious allegation by senate majority leader harry reid. does he have any proof? 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>> yeah. this time we do have our terminal facilities evacuated due to a specific threat that was called in to our airport earlier this afternoon around 2:00. about 2:35 local time we did evacuate our terminal facilities. we have done a sweep of one of our terminals, which is terminal b. and we are actually bringing people back intohat facility. >> so these people that we're seeing -- >> this is just happening right now. >> okay. so the people we saw earlier on the tarmac and obviously it's brutally hot in san antonio this time of the year, are being allowed to come back into a terminal that's been swept, correct? >> yes, correct. we did have some medical help out there. there was nothing that was reported at this time. but it is warm out here right now. so we're trying to get some water to some of these people and get them on buses and into a safe sheltered area. we're trying to get some public transit out here to help us out. >> and tell me about incoming air traffic. what's happening with those inbound planes? >> yeah. inbound planes are being allowed to land. they're just being held out on our tarmac area away from the terminal facilities at this time. and then aircraft that we did have at the terminal facilities were backed out. and either were cleared to takeoff or are held. >> when you say a specific thre, can you just try to define that for me? is that something where someone says i have placed a bomb in this or that terminal? or is it because they mentioned the san antonio airport? >> correct. >> which one? >> it was a little bit of both. it was called in specifically to our airport. there were specific locations as well as specific numbers that were given to the people who answered the phones. >> and we are told that perhaps that specific threat was for the parking garage. can you confirm that for me? >> i can't at this time. >> okay. and how long will it take you to sweep the rest of the airport? >> again, we're working on that. we do have one whole terminal already swept and cleared for people to enter. it's just working up now on our bigger terminal, which is terminal a. and like you said, there may be some external facilities as well that need to be sweeped. >> and can you tell me, mr. johnson, when -- as far as incoming -- i have no idea how planes fly into san antonio in a given hour. are all of them that are scheduled to come in, there's still room for them one assumes? you can still have them land very far away, right? >> yeah. at this time we have plenty of room for additional aircraft. we have about 260 total flights in and out flights and about 14,000 to 15,000 passengers a day. so we're looking at now probably 10 to 13 flights. and right around 1,000 people that are affected. >> and so far we have to emphasize nothing has gone off. you've found nothing suspicious, is that correct? >> at this time i can't confirm that. >> okay. is that just because you don't know the results of the search? or you're not allowed to? >> correct. it's ongoing at this time. >> all right. great. thank you so much. rich johnson, public information officer at san antonio international. thank you so much for your time. we of course at cnn will continue to check-in, hopefully with mr. johnson and others to see what's going on there. right now of course everyone's safe. and in fact they're trying to get water to some of those folks you saw stranded out there on the tarmac. another thing we are watching very closely this election year is the balance of power in congress. right now the democrats tenuo tenuously control the u.s. nate. they have 51 votes plus the body's two independents. as of today the race for the open republican seat from texas is a lot more interesting. democrat paul sadler is the underdog against a suddenly rising republican star ted cruz. our cnn political reporter, shannon travis is here. shannon, this is sounding so familiar. tea party candidate coming out of nowhere shakes up the establishment. he kind of came out of nowhere. >> he did come out of nowhere. although a lot of tea parties have been backing this guy for a while now. do a little bit of background. it was basically a hard scrap between these two men, man-to-man. they emerged from a crowded field of republicans in a may primary. the two of them emerged and they basically went man-to-man again, political combat in this race. cruz, who was the tea party-backed candidate was outspent by lieutenant governor who is the more republican establishment type by three-to-one and yet he still won this. the other interesting, candy, is it also split the republican party down certain lines as well. you had governor perry backing his lieutenant governor and the likes of sarah palin and rick santorum backing ted cruz. again, obviously pallin and santorum are huge tea party figures. so you're seeing a bit of a battle for the soul of the republican party, if you will. at least that's what a lot of political observers and sources are telling me is this is essentially a battle for the republican party. which way will it swing? more towards the hard right tea party types or more towards the moderate establishment types. >> have you been able to sort of assess yet is this a big enough rift or deep enough rift to maybe cause some of those more moderate, more established republicans to take a good look at the democratic candidate? >> yeah, they are. a lot of democrats are saying, you know what, every time a tea party-backed candidate wins one of these republican primaries, this gives the democrat more of an opening. this is less likely in a red state like texas, but republicans on both sides are basically assessing the situation and saying, hey, you know what, do we need to move a little bit more towards the tea party? because they seem to be the ones with all the momentum and energy. or do we kind of say, you know what, we accept you, we'll let you kind of have some of your i