By Caren Bohan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will host a forum on Tuesday with small business owners in Ohio, seeking to boost his support with an important constituency as he looks ahead to his 2012 re-election campaign.
Traveling with cabinet secretaries including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Obama will visit Cleveland to meet with local entrepreneurs and push his economic agenda.
Ohio, in America's industrial heartland, suffered heavy job losses during the recession and could be critical to Obama's political fortunes in next year's presidential election.
Obama, a Democrat, won the state in 2008 when he ran against Republican John McCain but its voters are closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.
Tuesday's trip will be Obama's first visit to the state since before the congressional elections last November in which Republicans took power in the U.S. House of Representative and boosted their numbers in the Senate.
The small business event is the latest of several steps Obama has taken to strengthen relations with the business community.
White House officials billed the trip as a chance to exchange ideas with the business community and listen to opinions on how the administration can foster job creation.
"The entrepreneurial spirit in this country is one of our greatest assets and the small business owners who grow these fast-growing jobs actually create the majority of these jobs," said Karen Mills, head of the Small Business Administration.
Businesses have complained about Obama's regulatory policies and the healthcare law he pushed through Congress last year. They contend the policies are harming their competitiveness but Obama has promised to undertake a review of regulations to try to streamline them.
The U.S. unemployment rate was 9 percent in January. In Ohio, it was 9.6 percent in December, the latest month for which statistics were available.
Obama's small business forum will include a series of sessions hosted by the various Cabinet secretaries on specific topics.
Geithner will host a session on access to capital, while Mills will lead one on entrepreneurship.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu will discuss clean energy with the business owners, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will focus on exports and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will lead a session on workforce development.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
