Obama hits jobs note on day of key ballots

US President Barack Obama condemned Republican "naysayers" he said tried to thwart his job creation plans, laying claim to having rescued the economy on a day of bellwether nominating polls.

On the floor of an Ohio steel mill, expanding partly because of his stimulus plan, President Obama said his first task last year had been to take "unpopular" choices to stave off a second Great Depression, despite resistance from his foes.

"If the just-say-no crowd had won out... we'd be in a deeper world of hurt," Mr Obama said, hitting a political message sure to dominate his pitch ahead of mid-term congressional polls in November.

"The steady progress we are beginning to see across America just wouldn't exist - and neither would the plant you're about to build," Mr Obama said, on the Youngstown premises of Vallourec and Mannesmann (V&M) Star.

"Despite the naysayers in Washington, who look for the cloud around every silver lining - the fact is that our economy is growing again. Last month, we gained 290,000 jobs."

Earlier, Mr Obama, in a black flame retardant jacket, surveyed the scene inside the steel mill, as huge machines whirred and rumbled and molten cylinders of steel spewed sparks and palpable heat, on a production line. V&M Star is one of North America's largest producers of seamless pipe for the oil and gas industry, and currently employs 278 hourly and 166 full-time workers.

President Obama travelled to the rust-belt in Ohio, where state unemployment is running at 11 per cent, above the national average, on a day when primaries take place in several states, including Ohio's neighbour Pennsylvania, likely to reflect current voter anger and offer pointers to November's elections.

V&M Star, a subsidiary of French company Vallourec, is embarking on a $650 million expansion, fuelled partly by demand for its services from projects launched under President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan. The new facility is expected to employ an extra 350 people, the White House said.

Voters were meanwhile casting ballots in several hard-fought primary elections that will show how anger at Washington could shape key mid-term polls in November and Mr Obama's agenda.

The contests are expected to test the limits of President Obama's influence over the Democratic party's rank-and-file, and the Republican party's ability to tamp down an internal insurrection from arch-conservative "Tea Party" activists.

In Arkansas and Pennsylvania, two veteran Democratic senators backed by President Obama, Blanche Lincoln and Arlen Specter, face upstart candidates backed by the party's more left-leaning core supporters. In Kentucky, the Republican Party establishment also looks set for an upset, with polls showing Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's anointed candidate running behind a "Tea Party" favourite.