Hillary Clinton makes campaign stop in Cleveland, June 13, 2016

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters during a campaign stop last week in Cleveland. In the background is Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of Clinton's Democratic allies in Ohio.

(John Kuntz, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - When Hillary Clinton speaks Tuesday in Columbus, she will continue what has been a remarkably traditional beginning to her general election campaign.

The presumptive Democratic nominee for president is sticking with a battleground map that served President Barack Obama well. She and her allies have unleashed a blitz of early television ads aimed at shoring up their base. And Ohio, as always, is right in the thick of things.

Are there risks in playing it so safe in a year in which Donald Trump - the Republican poised to claim his party's nomination next month in Cleveland - thrives on chaos? Of course there are.

But Trump's strategy relies on successfully navigating one of two increasingly improbable paths.

California and his native New York, the two largest and most reliable Democratic states, are fools' errands. Yet Trump seems fixated on them both in ways that defy good political sense. A clean sweep of the Rust Belt, including Ohio, is more realistic. Yet Trump is poorly organized in this region - he's not particularly well organized anywhere - and hasn't visited the Buckeye State since March. Conversely, Clinton's stop Tuesday will be her second in eight days.

Consider some other numbers.

Democrats say they now have 150 full-time employees on the ground in Ohio. It's a mix of Ohio Democratic Party and Democratic National Committee staff. In the weeks since Clinton locked up the nomination, all factions appear to be working harmoniously toward her election and toward the election of Ted Strickland, who is challenging Republican Sen. Rob Portman.

"Ohio Democrats - state party, Clinton and Strickland campaigns - are all singing from the same hymnal," Kirstin Alvanitakis, communications director for the Ohio Democratic Party, said Sunday in an email. "It's unclear if Ohio Republicans are even in the same church."

Ohio Gov. John Kasich was Trump's last-standing GOP rival in the primaries and won't be offering an endorsement anytime soon. One of Kasich's Ohio convention delegates resigned rather than face the unappealing choice of participating in a Trump coronation.

The Republican National Committee has more than 50 paid employees on the ground in the state - less than what was expected by this point. And Trump is still relying on the same in-state personnel that guided him to a loss against Kasich in the state's March primary.

Matt Borges, the Ohio Republican Party chairman, had been among Trump's most vocal critics and these days seems motivated more by a desire to protect Portman's seat in the Senate. Borges nevertheless is helping assemble Trump's Ohio team for the general election, though some of the planning included Corey Lewandowski, who lost his job as campaign manager Monday.

"I don't feel like we need to push the panic button," Borges said. "We need to get the right people in place. It needs to happen relatively soon. It may be taking a week or two longer than I'd hoped, but that's OK. The good news is we have 50-some RNC staffers on the ground here."

A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

By contrast, Clinton's campaign already has its top Ohio operatives in place. Her director here, Chris Wyant, is a veteran of Obama's two winning campaigns in the state.

"We are building a grassroots campaign to make sure supporters are empowered to take our campaign into their own hands and organize Ohioans to elect Hillary Clinton," Wyant, a Cincinnati native, said Monday in a statement emailed by the campaign. "We've hired staff and are working with the coordinated campaign to recruit volunteers, connect with supporters, and build the personal relationships with voters that mark successful campaigns."

There's something to be said for Clinton's predictability. It's a comfort to Democratic activists who have rallied around her and comes as Trump contends with a new crop of stories about how Republicans might dump him at their convention. Yes, there are some Clinton holdouts who support Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But you'd rather be in her shoes than in Trump's.

Clinton's early advantages in Ohio and other traditional swing states are key, because if she can build a lead over Trump, she may be able to expand the Democratic map. She could, for example, court Arizona, a state with a huge Hispanic population particularly motivated to vote against Trump, who is known for his inflammatory rhetoric about Mexican immigrants. She could try and flip Georgia, where changing demographics might turn in her favor.

If Donald Trump keeps doing Donald Trump things - questioning a judge's fairness because of his ethnicity, gloating in the wake of a national tragedy - the map could expand even more.

If Trump is going to win the Electoral College, he probably needs an aggressive push in the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and, yes, Ohio. The first three have gone Democratic in each of the last six presidential elections. Ohio has been more competitive.

That makes his recent travel schedule puzzling. Last week was a mix of classic battlegrounds (Nevada and New Hampshire), a tossup that went for Obama in 2008 but not 2012 (North Carolina), two potential problem spots (Arizona and Georgia) and a state Republicans should carry easily (Texas). This week he heads to Scotland to tend to personal business.

Applying conventional wisdom to Trump's candidacy can be a futile, maddening exercise. He has made it as far as he has by amplifying his message in nontraditional ways.

Recent polls have shown a close race between Clinton and Trump in Ohio. There are opportunities for him, particularly in the white-working class communities that ring the eastern and southeastern parts of the state. But to capitalize on them, he needs to show up. Clinton already is here in full force - and she's taking Ohio far more seriously.