VANDALIA — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel touted the importance of manufacturing during a Monday visit to the Dayton area, and received the endorsement of a national political action committee.

FreedomWorks PAC focuses on limited government and free markets, and the group’s executive director, Max Pappas, backed Mandel, saying Ohio could reshape the politics of the nation this November.

“There are three states that will decide the presidency — Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio,” Pappas said. “If Pennsylvania goes Democrat and Florida goes Republican, Ohio’s the swing state that decides where the presidency goes. ... And this Senate campaign could determine (which party) controls the U.S. Senate.”

Mandel, Ohio’s state treasurer, is running against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown for the Senate seat Brown won in 2006.

Mandel on Monday toured Staub Manufacturing Solutions, a metal fabricating company on the Dayton-Vandalia border, where he repeated a claim against Brown that has drawn recent criticism.

“It’s clear to me, and to people I hear from throughout the state, that Sherrod Brown is one of the main D.C. politicians responsible for jobs leaving Ohio and America and going to places like China, India and Mexico,” Mandel said.

Brown has made outsourcing and evaluating trade agreements among his top issues, and the group Politifact Ohio, a partnership of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer and PolitiFact.com, rated Mandel’s accusation as a “pants-on-fire” lie.

Mandel spokesman Travis Considine said Monday that policies coming out of Washington on business regulation and the tax code are bad for business and are moving jobs overseas.

Brown’s campaign didn’t hold back.

“He (Mandel) needs to push these falsehoods and outright lies, even after they’re debunked, because he needs to distract from his anti-middle class agenda.” said Justin Barasky, spokesman for the Brown campaign.

Mandel called Brown’s positions on energy, business regulation and health care “radical and extremist,” saying Brown cast the deciding vote two years ago on the health care reform bill, which passed in a 60-39 party-line vote.

But Mandel’s main focus Monday was on manufacturing. Steve Staub, president of Staub Manufacturing and a Mandel supporter, called Dayton “the powerhouse of manufacturing,” and said government must get out of the way of small business, referring to regulations “that strangle us.”

Staub pointed to a three-acre parcel his family owns just north of his shop but has been unable to develop, blaming the local rules of a wellfield protection area. Mandel said if elected, he’ll do “everything I can to get these faceless bureaucrats in Washington out of the way.”

Mandel criticized Brown’s votes on health care and bank bailouts, but when asked if he agreed with the 2008-09 auto industry bailout, which impacts manufacturing, Mandel said he couldn’t say how he would have voted.

“I’m not going to pretend that I was there two or three years ago when they were voting on that,” Mandel said. “What I will tell you is, between now and November, we’re going to put in place our own plan to restore and strengthen the manufacturing base in Ohio and America.”