Vice President Joe Biden earned ridicule from foes Saturday when he twice referred to the Democratic Virginia Senate candidate by the wrong first name.

Biden began his remarks to an enthusiastic crowd of about 1,500 at the Lynchburg Armory by praising former Gov. Tim Kaine with the correct name but later declared two times that he is "a big Tom Kaine fan."

Kaine is running against Republican George Allen for the seat vacated by Democrat Sen. Jim Webb, who is retiring.

The vice president went on to offer similar compliments for ex-Rep. Tom Perriello, whose first name is Tom.

A Mitt Romney campaign spokesman immediately highlighted the error.

“Vice President Biden forgot the name of his own Virginia Democratic Senate nominee and he wants voters to forget about President Obama’s failed economic policies and lack of a real agenda for a second term," Ryan Williams wrote in a campaign statement.

In Lynchburg, Biden also accused Republicans of hoping for lapses of memory.

"They're counting on the American people to have an overwhelming case of amnesia on November the 6th," he said.

Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith also responded.

"Once again, Mitt Romney’s campaign is showing their focus on the big things — like one letter in Tim Kaine's name," Smith said. "If they put as much time and effort into their policies, maybe we'd finally have an answer for how they'd pay for $5 trillion in tax cuts weighted to the very wealthy."

Kaine, the victim of the flub, responded in a tongue-in-cheeck tweet later Saturday.

"Thanks to the VPOTUS for the shout out today. I love Jay Biden!" he joshed via Twitter.

KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- The approach of Hurricane Sandy along the East Coast forced Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to scrap a planned campaign swing Sunday in Virginia, rerouting the GOP contender to the battleground state of Ohio instead.

"I was looking forward to being in Virginia tomorrow but you know the hurricane is headed up there, and I just spoke with the governor, Governor [Bob]  McDonnell, and the governor and I talked about that. He said, you know, the first responders really need to focus on preparation for the storm, so we’re not going to be able to be in Virginia tomorrow, we’re going to Ohio instead," Romney told some 4000 supporters at a rally here Saturday.

The Romney campaign had planned three stops in major markets on Sunday, with rallies in Sterling, Richmond and Virginia Beach, but after canceling the Virginia Beach rally on Friday, the campaign took what an aide said was a "precautionary measure" in cancelling the other two stops. Romney will join his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan for three stops in Ohio Sunday instead.

In Virginia, Romney-Ryan and Victory offices were accepting donations of bottled water and non-perishable food such as beef jerky, granola bars and peanut butter for distribution to relief centers.  

A Romney aide said the campaign planned to reschedule the Old Dominion swing.

Romney urged his Florida supporters, who know something about major storms, to keep thinking about those in the Sandy's path.

"I hope you'll keep the folks in Virginia and New Jersey and New York and all along the coast in your minds and in your hearts," Romney said. "You know how tough these hurricanes can be and our hearts go out to them."

Vice President Joe Biden also canceled a planned rally on Saturday in Virginia Beach, and President Barack Obama changed his travel plans ahead of the storm, leaving for planned campaign events in Florida on Sunday night instead of Monday morning. The Obama campaign has canceled a rally with Michelle Obama in New Hampshire on Tuesday as well, anticipating the effects of the storm may continue even then.

Traveling with Romney on Saturday, Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said he wasn't concerned about the electoral effect of the storm on Florida or elsewhere, but was focused on people.

"Our first concern is with the people that are in the path of the storm. Obviously, that is the No. 1 concern," Rubiotold reporters on the Romney campaign plane between stops in Florida. "Beyond that, I haven’t had time to think about what impact it's going to have on the campaign. I think that’s like a secondary concern at this point."

CIRCLEVILLE, OH & PENSACOLA, FL -- Voters in several key battleground states will find something unusual when they open their Sunday papers this week: a "Mittzine," a magazine all about Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The insert, paid for by a pro-Romney superPAC , is a glossy, full-color 12-page publication that will be packaged into roughly 4.5 million newspapers in Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Florida.

The magazine was paid for by a super PAC called the "Ending Spending Action Fund," which was founded by conservative billionaire Joe Ricketts,  founder of TD Ameritrade and an owner along with his family of the Chicago Cubs. Originally focused on combating congressional earmarks, the group now espouses spending cuts and debt reduction as well, according to a profile compiled by the transparency-in-government website OpenSecrets.Org.

The super PAC spent just over $1 million on this advertisement. 

“Who are the Romneys?” reads the front-page headline of the magazine, and a series of articles tell the Romney family biography. Another page has a chart comparing President Obama and Romney with the headline “Who should lead America for the next four years?” The insert also features light stories about Romney's running mate Paul Ryan, and even a crossword puzzle, with clues pulled from the candidate's life stories.

The clue for 1-down: “The burger company where Paul Ryan worked as a kid” and then for 17-across “Mitt's loving wife who showed her qualities at the RNC convention.”

The "Mittzine" will appear in several major papers Sunday including: The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Des Moines Register, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  and The Richmond Times Dispatch.

PENSACOLA, FL -- Campaigning in this famous Navy town on Florida's panhandle, Mitt Romney returned to a topic from last week's final presidential debate, slamming the president for proposed defense cuts and pushing his plan to expand the US naval fleet.

“In 2010, then-President Obama came to Pensacola. You probably weren’t there, but some folks were. And he took pride in saying, and I quote, that he had halted reductions in the Navy. That’s what he said. But today, he again has shrunk to a smaller version of the Navy and his view of the Navy’s role," Romney told a crowd of 10,000 supporters here Saturday, setting the scene.

Related: Romney turns Obama's attacks back against the president

"You may recall in our most recent debate I made the point that our Navy is now smaller than any time well, in almost a hundred years, and the president’s response was, well, you know, we don’t use bayonets and horses anymore. And, uh, in fact we do use bayonets, and a modern Navy is one of the critical elements that allows us to protect sea lanes and to keep the world more free and prosperous," Romney said.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

The former Massachusetts governor has made increasing the size and role of the Navy a cornerstone of his military policy. Here in Pensacola, home to a major Naval installation where former GOP presidential candidate John McCain went to flight school, his plan for the Navy took on an outsize role in what was otherwise a largely boilerplate stump speech.

"I believe in a modern Navy. That’s why my plan is to increase the number of ships we’re building to maintain our strong commitment to our military," Romney said. "His vision is not greatness in America’s Navy or America’s military. His vision is to cut our military spending by a trillion dollars. And by the way, a trillion dollars in cuts would cost about 41,000 jobs here in Florida, and think of all the businesses that depend on all those jobs. It’s extraordinary, but the president’s agenda keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.”

Saturday is the first day for early voting in Florida, a key battleground state that is pivotal to Romney's chances of taking the White House in 10 days. While Romney himself did not mention early voting in his remarks, both Sen. Marco Rubio and Senate hopeful Rep. Connie Mack urged supporters to cast their ballots right away.

"You know today is the first day of early voting, so when you're done here today, what are you going to do?" Mack asked, as the crowd shouted back "Vote!"

"You're gonna go out and vote and then you're gonna call your friends, you're gonna call your neighbors, you're gonna call your family. No matter where they are, tell them to get out to vote." 

ZANESVILLE, OH – With a mere 10 days before Election Day, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan kicked off a two-day bus tour in Ohio, arguably the biggest battleground state of all.

"As Ohio goes, so goes America. I think you know that," Ryan told the crowd inside Zanesville High School at his second stop on the ‘Victory In Ohio’ Bus Tour. 

Related: Obama campaign: Romney momentum narrative not grounded in fact

Mitt Romney’s running mate is helping illustrate the GOP ticket’s final argument going into Election Day on his 400-mile tour of Ohio.

"As you look at the closing arguments, we’re talking about what it’s going to take to get people back to work. We’re talking about the kind of leadership that Mitt Romney has provided throughout his life, at running at problems to solve problems,” Ryan said shortly after the “Momentum” web video played on screens in the gymnasium. “There have been hundreds of millions of dollars of negative advertising from the spring on trying to disqualify Mitt Romney. But what we learned at the debates is that this is a man of integrity, this is a man of principle, this is a man who knows how to create jobs, this is a man we would be proud to call our president. 

The seven-term Wisconsin congressman, who attended college at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, also tried to make a personal appeal to Ohioans on a rainy Saturday in Big 10 Country.

"We come from Big 10 country," Ryan said to applause at Gradall Industries in New Philadelphia, Ohio. "I'm just happy the Badgers and Buckeyes play after the election."

The latest TIME poll shows President Barack Obama with a 5-point lead in the Buckeye State, ahead of Romney 49 percent to 44 percent.

Both the Romney and Obama camps have been campaigning in the state frequently plus being up on the airwaves with ads in order to try and secure Ohio’s 18 electoral votes. Obama beat Sen. John McCain in Ohio during the 2008 election by 4 percent points.

Speaking before nearly 1,000 people at his first stop of the day in New Philadelphia, Ryan tried to fire up the crowd in the homestretch of the campaign: “The debate is going to last for about 10 more days. The choice is yours on November the sixth. Think about November the seventh. Think about how you will feel the next morning when you wake up and turn on the TV….Are we gonna wait four more years before we have real change or are we just gonna wait ten days? We can turn this around.”

Ryan has three more events Saturday in Circleville, Yellow Springs and Sabina. He has another three events Sunday. As a result of the impending weather conditions on the East Coast, Romney will join Ryan for the final event of the bus tour tomorrow evening at the fairgrounds in Marion, Ohio.

LAS VEGAS -- First lady Michelle Obama brought her early vote message to another crucial battleground state Friday, telling about 1000 supporters inside a middle school gym to get out to the polls, and to pull others "into the fold."

"I need you all to go vote," Obama said, before urging the crowd to visit a polling station adjacent to the school, inside a nearby shopping mall.

An election official at the Boulevard Mall later told NBC News that about 300 people arrived to cast ballots in the immediate aftermath of the first lady's event.  

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

Early voting began Oct. 20th in Nevada and will run through Nov. 2nd -- a 14-day period.

A call to action is not a new message from the first lady, but it came Friday amid more polling showing President Barack Obama facing a tightening race against Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.   

NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist polls this week show President Obama with a 50-47 percent lead among likely voters here in Nevada, and tied at 48 percent in Colorado.

"There will be plenty of ups and downs over the next 11 days," Obama told the crowd here, encouraging them to keep working.

The event opened against the backdrop of a drama involving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), one of the president's most outspoken and powerful allies. 

In the minutes after Reid's wife, Landra Reid, delivered remarks praising the first lady, reports materialized that Reid had been involved in an area car accident.   Mrs. Reid seemed not to have been aware of the accident during her speech. 

In a statement later Friday, Reid's staff said he was brought to an area hospital by his own security detail as a "precaution," with hip and rib bruises.  

He was released from the hospital Friday evening, according to the NBC station in Las Vegas.

When Obama took the podium here she called Harry and Landra Reid "tremendous friends and supporters," but didn't mention the senate majority leader's accident.  

"They are awesome champions for this state and for this country," Obama said of the Reids.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is trying to inflate the sense of momentum surrounding his campaign, President Barack Obama's re-election team argued Friday. 

A senior Obama campaign official told NBC News that their tracking of the handful of battleground states that could decide the election suggests that Romney isn't performing as well as his campaign would have voters believe. 

"His momentum narrative does have an impact on how people view the race on the ground in the states," said the official. "And we wanted to correct it."

A series of public national and battleground state polls have shown Romney improving -- or even, in some cases, pulling even -- versus Obama in the aftermath of his successful first debate performance. The NBC News-Wall Street Journal released this past Sunday showed the two candidates tied at 47 percent apiece among likely voters. 

In recent campaign stops, the GOP nominee has made an unabashed effort to make the case that momentum is on his side. 

"These debates really have propelled our campaign across the country, and in some respects, I think they diminished the Obama campaign," Romney said Thursday in Ohio. "He knows that I’m out there and they’re not making much progress, and so his campaign gets smaller and smaller, focused on smaller and smaller things. Our campaign is about big things."

The Obama campaign argued that their early and absentee voting operation, combined with their analysis of the situation in each battleground, suggests that Romney is bluffing. 

"I think over the last couple of weeks, there's been this sense that Romney has this incredible momentum, and it's not borne out by any fact," the Obama official asserted.

Romney's also tried in recent days to cast himself as the candidate of "big change" while painting Obama as representative of the "status quo." 

The Obama campaign suggested that the president is preparing to engage Romney on that assertion in the closing days of the 2012 campaign. 

"He doesn't have the change message; it's just not believable," the Obama official said. "It's not believable by voters, and actually gives us an opening. Yeah, he does want to change. He wants to go back to the very same policies that crashed the economy."

The official added: "So you'll be hearing that from us pretty heavily over the course of the next week."

KENOSHA, Wis. -- Three days after Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock sparked a firestorm for saying that pregnancies from rape are "something God intended to happen," Vice President Joe Biden linked the remark - along with another by controversial candidate by Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin -- to the Republican ticket. 

"They made it very clear that they do not believe a woman has a right to control her own body," Biden said of Republican standard-bearers Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. "They can't even get up the gumption to condemn the statements made by 2 of their candidates for United states Senate."  

This summer, Missouri candidate Akin designated "legitimate rape" as a scenario in which physical pregnancy could not occur, prompting Republican leaders - including Romney - to urge him to exit the competitive race. 

Romney called Akin's language "offensive and wrong" but was less vigorous about Mourdock's statement, saying he "disagreed" but still backs him. 

"It's not enough to tell me you don't agree," Biden said Friday, alluding to Romney's distance from Mourdock's statement but refusal to rescind his endorsement of the Indiana candidate. "It's having the moral courage to stand up and say what they said was wrong, simply wrong." 

Biden has consistently been critical of the Republican ticket's views on abortion, but he has not specifically named either of the two controversial Senate candidates before. 

The vice president's critique came at his last event of a day-long swing through Wisconsin. He will travel to Lynchburg, VA tomorrow for a rally, but the campaign has cancelled a planned Virginia Beach event due to an impending storm. 

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has appropriated for himself one of President Barack Obama's most potent lines of attack throughout this election.

If there is a candidate who represents the status quo and whose plans for the next four years are hazy, it's Obama, as Romney tells it. 

It's the same charge the Obama campaign has used against Romney -- with great effect -- for most of 2012. But in a stroke of irony, the Republican nominee has turned the attack back toward the president, with a degree of success. 

"This election is a choice between the status quo," Romney said during a major speech on Friday in Iowa, "or choosing real change."

The former Massachusetts governor has stumped for most of this week by calling himself the candidate of "big change," claiming for himself the mantle of "change" that Obama had first powerfully represented in 2008. 

Moreover, Romney has begun ridiculing Obama's plans for a second term as thin and vague at best. 

"You see the President’s campaign is slipping, the president’s campaign is slipping because he can't find an agenda. He's been looking for it -- there's only 12 days left," Romney said at a rally Thursday in Ohio. "He hasn't had a chance to defend it or to describe it to the American people in our debates and so the American people now have to recognize that given the big challenges and the big election we have it's time for a big change." 

If Romney's offensive seems familiar, that might be due to its similarities to many of Obama's own attacks on the Republican nominee. 

The president, for instance, has sought throughout the campaign to link Romney to former President George W. Bush, arguing that little has changed in Romney's proposals from the last Republican to inhabit the White House. 

"We can’t afford to go backwards to the same policies that got us into this mess; we’ve got to go forward with the policies that are getting us out of this mess," Obama said yesterday at a rally in Virginia. 

Charlie Neibergall / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivers his speech on the economy during a campaign stop at Kinzler Construction Services, Friday, Oct. 26, 2012, in Ames, Iowa.

And Obama mocked Romney's jobs plans as nonsensical and insubstantial, much as Romney has begun to do of Obama's second-term agenda. 

"I’ve got a plan that will actually create jobs, not just talk about creating jobs -- a plan that will actually create middle-class security, not just use the words but not deliver on the promise," Obama said at the same rally in Richmond. "Unlike my opponent, I’m actually proud to talk about what’s in my plan, because the arithmetic works." 

But Romney has been able to turn these criticisms back against Obama precisely because voters suggest that they are seeking change, even if Obama is re-elected. Sixty-two percent of registered voters, for instance, said in this week's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that Obama should make "major changes" in a potential second term. 

Obama's campaign also produced a new, glossy pamphlet -- which packages many of Obama's existing jobs proposals, which have met defeat on Capitol Hill -- in a glossy pamphlet. Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan ridiculed it as a "comic book" during a rally Thursday in Virginia. 

"President Obama really hasn’t given us a vision for a second term agenda. Just a couple of days ago he came up with a slick new brochure, with less than two weeks left to say, 'Oh I do actually have an agenda,'" he said. "It is ... a slick re-packaging of more of the same." 

That Obama hasn't laid out much of a comprehensive second term agenda -- combined with the overall thirst for "change" among many voters -- has only aided Romney and Ryan's ability to sidestep many of the questions about their own plans that had dogged the Republican ticket for much of the election. When asked about the difficult arithmetic or politics underlying Romney's proposals, Republicans are arguing in the closing days of the election that Obama has hardly offered better. 

In an interview on Friday with radio host Michael Smerconish, the president dismissed Romney's claim to "big change" -- by again voicing his familiar criticism of Romney. 

"What Gov. Romney's offering is a return to policies that have failed us in the past," Obama said. "He's now talking about them as 'big changes.' They're not big changes; they're a repeat, a relapse, of things that haven't worked for American families for over a decade now."

AMES, IA -- Promising to deliver "real change" to meet the nation's "big problems," Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney summarized his closing pitch to voters in a major speech Friday in Iowa.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney delivers his speech on the economy during a campaign stop at Kinzler Construction Services, Friday, Oct. 26, 2012, in Ames, Iowa.

The former Massachusetts governor, just 11 days out from Election Day, cast the choice facing voters as between "big change" (represented by Romney) and the status quo, as represented by President Barack Obama.

Romney's twenty minute speech was a crisper, cleaner version of the "big change" argument he began laying out on the stump Thursday in Ohio. In it, the Republican nominee accused Obama of shrinking from the many challenges faced by the American people and economy, and tried to offer a hopeful vision for what a Romney-Ryan presidency might look like.

"This is an election of consequence.  Our campaign is about big things, because we happen to believe that America faces big challenges.  We recognize this is a year with a big choice, and the American people want to see big changes.  And together we can bring that kind of change, real change to our country," Romney said.

"Four years ago, candidate Obama spoke to the scale of the times," Romney continued. "Today, he shrinks from it, trying instead to distract our attention from the biggest issues to the smallest -- from characters on Sesame Street and silly word games to misdirected personal attacks he knows are false."

Romney told a crowd of more than 2,000 supporters here that he and Ryan would take on the "big problems that everyone agrees can’t wait any longer" -- including reforming entitlements, curbing health care costs and breaking partisan gridlock in Washington, an issue on which he also battered the president for failing to live up to his promises.

"The president's campaign falls far short of the magnitude of these times. And the presidency of the last four years has fallen far short of the promises of his last campaign," Romney said. "Four years ago, America voted for a post-partisan president, but they have seen the most partisan of political of presidents, and a Washington in gridlock because of it."

While the speech was billed as a major policy address by the Republican's campaign, it, in fact, largely restated many of the policies about which Romney has talked throughout the campaign. But it offered the GOP nominee a chance to frame the election on his own terms, and argue that his track record suggests he would be more successful in breaking partisan gridlock in Washington.

"We’re going to will meet with Democrat and Republican leaders in Washington regularly, we’re going to look for common ground and shared principles, we’ll put the interests of the American people above the interests of the politicians,” Romney said.

The return to first principles for the Romney campaign -- focusing tightly on kitchen table economic issues and attacking Obama on a litany of issues -- comes as the campaign has looked to project confidence and momentum as the race hurtles towards its conclusion on Nov. 6.

"All the trendlines are positive, both in the national polls and the battleground states," senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters before the event.

The Obama campaign characteristically disputed Romney's speech.

"Romney has started promising ‘big change,’ but the only change Romney’s offering is to take us back to the same failed policies that crashed our economy in the first place," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement responding to Friday's speech. "That’s not the change we need, and with every ‘major speech,’ Mitt Romney just reminds voters that’s all he’s got to offer.”

FAIRVIEW PARK, OH -- Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, the chairman of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign in the Buckeye State, said Friday that it would be tough for Romney to win the election without carrying Ohio.

Al Behrman / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, shakes hands with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, after Portman introduced Romney at a campaign stop at Jet Machine, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, in Cincinnati.

"I'm feeling the pressure not just because I'm chairing the effort here in Ohio, but mostly because I feel the pressure for our country and what's going to happen over the next four years," Portman told NBC News on Friday while traveling between campaign stops for Romney. "If we don't win Ohio, it's tough to see us winning the election nationally. It's possible, but it's very difficult."

Most of the recent attention the Ohio senator has received has centered on the key role he played in Romney's debate preparation and how close he came to being chosen as the GOP vice presidential nominee. But before he took on any of those roles, he was tapped by Romney to lead the former Massachusetts governor's effort in the key battleground state.

"We're doing better in Cleveland, and Cincinnati and Columbus and Toledo where we have some of the numbers of the absentee and early voting, we're doing better than we expected we would," he told volunteers gathered at the Avon Lake Victory Center. "We're exceeding our targets."

Portman told the crowd that internal Romney polling shows the state is a dead heat with with 11 days to go until Election Day. He's making five stops in North east Ohio today before appearing at a rally with Romney and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan tonight. At each stop, the man who ran a successful statewide campaign just two years earlier, said the grassroots effort will make the difference in this state.

It's a difference, Portman feels, that will give Romney the edge here on Election Day.

"I believe the Obama campaign probably has a pretty effective grassroots infrastructure, but I dont think you can compete with volunteers who really have their heart in it and are fired up for all the right reasons," he said.

With just 11 days to go in the presidential election, ad spending has topped $900 million and is on pace to surpass $1 billion.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

US President Barack Obama arrives on stage for a campaign event October 24, 2012 at Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa. President Obama set off Wednesday on an eight state, 7,660 mile, 40-hour tour, in a show of confidence and commitment in battlegrounds that will decide the election. Thirteen days before he asks voters for a second term, Obama's through-the-night, coast-to-coast trip will take in six of the most contested swing states in his toss-up race with Republican Mitt Romney. The struggle in Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Virginia and Ohio will decide which of the rivals masses the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

First Read reported just nine days ago that spending on radio and television ads had crossed the $800 million threshold.

Total spending, including the campaigns and outside groups, has now climbed to $907 million, according to an NBC analysis of data provided by ad-buying firm SMG Delta.

Ohio is now the top state in overall ad spending at $185 million, surpassing Florida which is at $182 million.

Just this week, $84 million in ads have been booked, a record for any single week this election. But next week already tops this one with $86 million in ad buys already booked. Ohio tops all states with $18 million of that money this week and $20 million next.

“Team Romney,” the campaign and outside groups supporting him, are far outpacing “Team Obama” this week -- $54 million to $30 million.

In overall spending, Team Romney is outpacing Team Obama $531 million to $375 million.

Here are the top 10 states overall:

• Ohio $185 million
• Florida $182 million
• Virginia $144 million
• Colorado $78 million
• Iowa $71 million
• North Carolina $69 million
• NV $55 million
• NH $49 million
• WI $40 million
• PA $19 million
• MI $15 million

Focusing on Ohio -- and Colorado… New NBC/WSJ/Marist polls show Obama and Romney tied in Colorado at 48% and Obama up 50%-47% in Nevada… Ohio’s proxy battle: Brown vs. Mandel… Talk about an October surprise: Here comes Hurricane Sandy… Sununu: Powell endorsed Obama because of race… And the battle for perceived momentum.

CINCINNATI, Ohio -- As Ohio goes, almost everyone thinks, so goes the presidency. And it almost seemed yesterday like both President Obama and Mitt Romney were running for the presidency of Ohio, with Romney making three stops in the state and Obama’s Air Force One making an appearance at a rally in Cleveland. But while all of our attention might be on Ohio, the closest race in the country could very well be Colorado and its nine electoral votes. According to brand-new NBC/WSJ/Marist polls, Obama and Romney are deadlocked at 48% among likely voters in Colorado, while Obama holds a narrow three-point lead in Nevada, 50%-47%. (Among the broader sample of registered voters, Obama is up by one in Colorado, 48%-47%, and he leads by six in Nevada, 51%-45%.) And what’s going on in Colorado could signal what happens in Florida and Virginia: Romney has made gains with suburban women, while Obama leads big among Latinos. Remember our “scenario of the day” watch regarding Colorado earlier this week: If Obama wins NV/WI/IA/NH and Romney wins FL/NC/VA/OH, both would need Colorado to go over the top…

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

A boy cheers while others chant "Four more years" as President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign rally in Cleveland, Ohio October 25, 2012. Obama is on a two-day, eight-state, campaign swing.

*** Ohio’s proxy battle: If we learned anything from last night’s Sherrod Brown-vs.-Josh Mandel debate here in Cincinnati, which one of us moderated, it’s that the race is essentially a proxy for the presidential contest on Ohio. You had Brown touting the auto bailout, an improving economy, and balanced deficit reduction, while Mandel was casting himself as a change agent, campaigning against Washington, and opposing any kind of tax increases. The one big exception was Mandel not saying if he would vote for the Ryan budget plan. Most Republicans, including Romney, have embraced that plan. And although Romney has tried to blur his opposition to the auto bailout -- NBC’s Garrett Haake wrote last night that surrogate Rob Portman told Romney’s audience that the GOP presidential nominee had proposed government guarantees (but that was only after bankruptcy) -- Mandel simply said he opposed it because it cut pension benefits for some 5,000 Delphi retirees, and he made the original case Romney had made against the bailout that it was unnecessary because a private bankruptcy could have worked. While Romney has tried to alter his answer a tad, Mandel did not.  

*** Talk about an October surprise: After weather disrupted both the GOP and Democratic conventions over the summer, Mother Nature appears to have one more surprise in store for the two campaigns: Hurricane Sandy. With that storm approaching the East Coast, it raises a host of questions. What happens to Obama’s events with Bill Clinton on Monday in Florida and Virginia? Does it snow in the Midwest, where both Obama and Romney are set to campaign later next week? Does the hurricane even hit Romney’s campaign headquarters in Boston? These are a lot of questions, but we don’t have any answers. This puts a MAJOR wrench into the final week of travel plans for both campaigns; And of course, how the government responds will get extra scrutiny and, well, ya never know. Now we have our October surprise.

*** Top Romney surrogate: Reason Powell backed Obama was because of race: Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama yesterday had the potential to be a one-day story, given that Powell had backed Obama in ’08. But a top Romney surrogate on TV, John Sununu -- who served with Powell while working in the Bush 41 administration -- made sure that the endorsement stayed in the news. “[F]rankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether that’s an endorsement based on issues or whether he’s got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama?” Sununu told CNN’s Piers Morgan, per the Washington Post. When Morgan followed up what that reason might be, Sununu replied, “Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being President of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him.” (Meet the Press' Press Pass dives into military issues with Tom Ricks and Michael Gordon.)

*** Romney camp walks back Sununu’s comment: Late last night, per NBC’s Peter Alexander, the Romney camp released this statement from Sununu: "Colin Powell is a friend and I respect the endorsement decision he made and I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president's policies. Piers Morgan's question was whether Colin Powell should leave the party, and I don't think he should." (But when you see the interview, Sununu clearly questioned whether Powell’s endorsement was based on issues and policies. Honest question: If this was the statement the Romney camp was going to send, would they have been better off sending nothing? ) This, of course, isn’t the first time that Sununu words have sparked controversy -- and caused some Obama supporters to accuse him of dog whistling on race.. He earlier said he wished Obama "would learn to be an American," and called Obama “lazy” after the first debate. This is a Romney national campaign co-chair; this isn’t simply some unknown supporter. The last thing the Romney campaign wants to introduce is the idea that endorsements are based on race. Did Ross Perot back Romney because he’s white? What would the outrage have been had some Obama national campaign co-chair insinuated that?

*** The battle for perceived momentum: So what’s going on in Minnesota? Is the Romney campaign buying TV ad time there to create a narrative that the map is expanding? Do they really think they have a chance in Minnesota, or do they just have money to burn? If they were serious about expanding the map, wouldn’t they be putting this money in Pennsylvania? Just a few questions worth asking and thinking about.

*** On the trail: Obama is off the trail, but he conducts a series of interviews, including with MTV’s Sway Calloway, radio host Michel Smerconish, and Urban Radio’s April Ryan… Romney delivers an economic speech in Ames, IA at 1:10 pm ET and then hits a rally with Paul Ryan in Canton, OH at 7:15 pm ET… Biden stumps in Wisconsin… And Michelle Obama is in Las Vegas, while Ann Romney is in Virginia Beach, VA.

*** On the trail over the weekend: On Saturday, Obama holds a rally in Nashua, NH… Romney stumps with Marco Rubio in Florida… Biden hits Virginia… Ryan begins a bus tour through Ohio… And on Sunday, Romney holds three rallies in Virginia.

Countdown to Election Day: 11 days

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*** Friday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Jonathan Capehart and Susan Ferrechio, the DNC’s  Brad Woodhouse, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, strategists Steve McMahon and David Winston, and Frank Newport explains the latest Gallup polls.

*** Friday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’S Thomas Roberts talks with DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL),  Democratic Pollster Stan Greenberg, “Ralston Reports” Host Jon Ralston, Allison Sherry of The Denver Post, and Jennifer Chrisler, Exec. Dir. Of the Family Equality Council.  Today’s Power Panel includes: NBC Latino’s Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, Republican Strategist Susan Del Percio and Democratic Strategist Chris Kofinis.

*** Friday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: Chris Cillizza, filling in for Andrea Mitchell, interviews Romney adviser Vin Weber, the Weather Channel’s Bryan Norcross, the Economist’s Greg Ip, Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf, Rolling Stone contributor Douglas Brinkley, USA Today’s Susan Page, The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart and National Journal’s Reid Wilson.

*** Friday's NewsNation with Tamron Hall: Tamron interviews Democratic strategist David Goodfriend, Republican Strategist Danny Vargas, The Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut, Fmr. Gov Ed Rendell, The Rev Al Sharpton, and Rich Rubino, Author of “The Political Bible of Little Known Facts in American Politics”

*** Saturday’s and Sunday’s “Weekends with Alex Witt”: MSNBC’s Alex Witt interviews Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Chris Jansing, Thomas Roberts, Alex Wagner, and Tamron Hall all about the upcoming election.

*** Saturday’s and Sunday’s “UP with Chris Hayes”: MSNBC’s Chris Hayes interviews, among others, Tammy Baldwin on Saturday.

What it all boils down to… Charlie Cook: “A strong performance in that first debate would have probably closed the sale for Obama. Instead, his lackluster showing shifted a bunch of voters who had seemed to be drifting gradually in his direction back into neutral, with some reversing course and moving into Romney’s column.”

More: “This race is still a challenge for Romney. Although tied nationally in this new NBC/WSJ and most other polling, he still carries a great deal of scar tissue in some of the swing states—most notably, Ohio and Wisconsin, but also Colorado and Iowa. Romney is clearly better situated to win the popular vote than the electoral vote; Obama is much closer than Romney to the magic 270 number in the Electoral College. But this is a horse race, a very close one that can still go either way, and that was not the case before the first debate. The debates—and I would say all three of them—hit a reset button for Romney and put him back into this contest.”

Obama and Romney are on track to raise $2 billion between them.

OHIO: Bloomberg (via Political Wire): “It would take about 80 days of nonstop viewing to see all 58,235 of the typically 30-second Ohio presidential advertisements that have aired in the last month.”

FLORIDA: Politico: “The Florida county that brought us the hanging chad 12 years ago is in the midst of yet another electoral mess — and the presidential election is still nearly two weeks away.

The problem this time: 27,000 filled-out absentee ballots in Palm Beach County that were misprinted and cannot be read by tabulation machines. County officials are having the results from all those ballots copied onto properly laid-out ballots, with representatives from both the Obama and Romney campaigns present.”

But the Palm Beach Post writes: “After more than a week of bad news about absentee ballots with printing errors and the potential chaos of hand-copying an estimated 27,000 of them, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher on Thursday found something to smile about. ‘We’re caught up,’ an almost giddy Bucher said shortly after 4 p.m. Problems and long days and nights are far from over. But the news means that after four days, teams of temporary workers had copied all of the nearly 8,500 bad ballots that were in the first batch of 15,000 that arrived at the elections office by Monday, and additional ones that continued to stream in this week. Monday was the first day absentee ballots could be opened.”

NBC's Ali Weinberg: “Perhaps the most impactful part of President Barack Obama’s speech here [in Cleveland, OH] Thursday night wasn’t anything he said, but how he arrived. The presidential aircraft, Air Force One, taxied right up to a crowd of 12,000 at the Burke Lakefront Airport, easing to a stop in front of the podium.”

More: “After a dramatic few minutes when the crowd cheered on the plane itself, the president descended, breaking into a full jog to the stage, the words “United States of America” emblazoned on the aircraft behind him, gleaming in stark white and blue against the darkness of the night behind it. While such theatrics were an example of the power of the presidency, Obama’s hoarse voice proved that even presidents get run down sometimes – for example, after 48 hours covering eight states and catching a few hours of sleep on the plane – even if it is Air Force One.”

Four Pinocchios… Great opening line by the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler about Obama’s distancing himself from sequestration at the third and final presidential debate: “As the saying goes, success has a thousand fathers, while failure is an orphan. And if there ever is an orphan in Washington these days, it is that odd duck known as ‘sequestration.’” And on the facts: “No one disputes the fact that no one wanted sequestration, or that ultimately a bipartisan vote in Congress led to passage of the Budget Control Act. But the president categorically said that sequestration was ‘something that Congress has proposed.’ Woodward’s detailed account of meetings during the crisis, clearly based on interviews with key participants and contemporaneous notes, make it clear that sequestration was a proposal advanced and promoted by the White House.”

DC leaders are not happy with Obama.

Romney said yesterday: “We’ve got to make sure we win here in Ohio, and when we do, we’re going to take back the White House.”

“Mitt Romney's campaign announced [yesterday] that the GOP ticket and the Republican National Committee raised $111.8 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 17,” Politico reports.

“Mitt Romney's running as far as he can from George W. Bush,” Politico writes. “In all three presidential debates, Romney's raced from the last Republican president's policies — claiming he's got new ideas for foreign policy, the deficit and energy. But for all of Romney's efforts to divorce himself from Bush, behind the scenes there's one critical way he's given the era a full embrace: its people. Romney's brought on a cadre of Bush officials to serve as his senior policy advisers, lead his presidential transition effort and help him raise millions to fuel his run — the pillars of his campaign and a potential administration.”

The Boston Globe: “Mitt Romney testified under oath in 1991 that the ex-wife of Staples founder Tom Stemberg got a fair deal in the couple’s 1988 divorce, even though the company shares Maureen Sullivan Stemberg received were valued at a tenth of Staples’ stock price on the day of its initial public offering only a year later. At the time the Stembergs split, Romney suggested, there was little indication that Staples’ value would soon skyrocket.”

The Globe also writes: “The president of the nation’s largest gay-rights advocacy group criticized Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney Thursday after the Globe reported how, as governor of Massachusetts, he blocked routine recording of births to same-sex parents.”

That story from yesterday: “Romney rejected new birth certificates for gay parents.”

AP: “Republican Mitt Romney is renewing his focus on the nation’s economy while facing continued pressure to break his silence on a GOP Senate candidate’s statement that any pregnancy resulting from rape is ‘something God intended.’ As Election Day looms less than two weeks away, the Republican presidential contender is also trying to move past new questions about his role in a key supporter’s divorce. Court documents released Thursday reveal that Romney created a special class of company stock for Staples founder Tom Stemberg’s then-wife as a ‘favor.’ Romney has so far ignored the criticism and is instead accusing President Barack Obama of playing partisan politics in an ‘incredibly shrinking campaign.’”

Romney bought ad time in Minnesota.

Keep it classy… maybe it’s actually about foreign policy: “Former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, a co-chair of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign, said in an interview Thursday night that retired Gen. Colin Powell's decision to endorse President Barack Obama's re-election bid appeared to have been driven by race,” Politico writes. “However, Sununu later seemed to reverse himself. Sununu said on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight last night: "Frankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder if that's an endorsement based on issues, or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama?" Morgan asked, "What reason would that be?" Sununu replied, "Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being President of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him.”

Sununu walked it back hours later: "Colin Powell is a friend and I respect the endorsement decision he made and I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president’s policies. Piers Morgan’s question was whether Colin Powell should leave the party, and I don’t think he should.”

John McCain’s not happy that Powell endorsed, making a hot statement yesterday. Powell didn’t endorse McCain in 2008.

In their final debate, moderated by NBC's Chuck Todd, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel continued to spar over Medicare, the auto rescue and women's health, MSNBC’s Michael LaRosa reports.

With a much less vitriol this time around, both candidates outlined their differences and fought to be the champion of Ohio's seniors and working and manufacturing class.

When Mandel was asked directly if he would have support the Ryan budget that his own party has endorsed, the 35-year-old newcomer to national politics didn’t give a yes or no, and eventually said that he if was sent to Washington he would introduce his own plan to save Medicare and Social Security. “I believe it is unfair to change Medicare or Social Security for my grandmother and her generation and my parents and my generation,” Mandel said.

Brown pounced. “I know this sounds like Washington-speak to Josh, but you have to vote yes or no on issues,” Brown said. 

Mandel, using a familiar and often used GOP line of attack, accused Brown of robbing senior citizens of the Social Security Trust Fund by stealing $716 billion to pay for the President's health care bill.

“Where did that money go for Social Security?” Mandel scolded Brown.  “What did you do with it?”                                         

"Oh come on, Josh," an exasperated Brown muttered.

Mandel also said he wouldn't be a "bailout senator," if he was sent to Washington and split with Sen. Brown on support for the auto rescue. 

"I think it's the role of the private sector to create jobs," Mandel said. "One reason we're in this mess is because of bailouts."  “There’s no government bailout that I can think of that I would ever support," he announced. 

“My opponent says my vote for the auto rescue - and I assume Sen. Voinovich’s – was un-American," Brown said referring to Ohio's popular former Governor and Senator.  "To me, that vote was doing my job to fight for their jobs," he continued.

The race between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney is locked in a dead heat in Colorado, while the president maintains a narrow edge in the other Western swing state of Nevada.

Read the full Nevada poll here (.pdf)

Obama and Romney are tied at 48 percent among likely voters in Colorado, according to the new NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist polls conducted this week, entirely after the third and final presidential debate. Among the broader sample of registered voters, Obama holds a 48 to 47 percent lead over Romney.

Read the full Colorado poll here (.pdf)

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign rally at Worthington Industries on Oct. 25, 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The race for the Centennial State has tightened since mid-September – right after the Democratic convention and before the debates – when Obama led 50 percent to 45 percent.

But the president's lead has held in another important battleground state, Nevada.

Obama leads Romney, 50 to 47 percent, among likely voters in Nevada. That result is within the margin of error, but also mirrors the late September Nevada NBC/WSJ/Marist poll, when Obama was up 49 percent to 47 percent among likely voters.

Among the broader sample of registered voters, Obama's lead in Nevada expands to 51 percent to 45 percent. 

“I think we’re at a different point than we were in mid-September,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the polls. “Romney’s had a better October than any of the other months in the campaign. We do see a change in his favorability. He’s no longer upside down. That’s leveled off. He’s doing better with independent voters, closed the gender gap, and doing better with women. What that means for a place like Colorado -- it is extremely close right now, but it is clearly a state that could go either way.” 

Romney makes gains in Colorado

In Colorado, Obama is not hitting his mark with white voters, and is now losing suburban Denver voters as well as independents to Romney, who has also closed the gender gap versus the president. Enthusiasm among young voters has also fallen off for the president.

Men and women alike in Denver's suburbs have shifted toward Romney; a month ago, Obama led by 18 points among Denver suburban women, an advantage that closed to 3 percent in the most recent poll. Romney has expanded his lead among Denver's suburban men from 6 points last month to 13 points in this week's poll. 

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama greets supporters on the tarmac upon his arrival on Air Force One at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012.

A month ago, Obama led with independents 50 to 39 percent, an advantage which has shrunk to a virtual draw, 46 to 45 percent. Among women, the president led in September by a whopping 14 points, 54 to 40 percent, a lead that has been halved to 7 percent (52 to 45 percent). 

Obama has been able to stay even with Romney by maintaining big margins in Colorado's more liberal bastions and with strong support from Latinos, who say they support the president 63 to 34 percent. They make up a larger percentage of the electorate than 2008 and are breaking for Obama by a wider margin.

Latinos fuel Obama’s Nevada edge

Nevada is slightly friendlier turf for the president; Obama won Colorado by 9 percent in 2008, and won Nevada by 12 points. 

Fueling Obama's lead in the Silver State is an even larger margin over Romney among Latinos and robust early voting for the president. Romney, in turn, is aided by stronger enthusiasm by Republicans, who are helping keep the GOP nominee in the race. 

Hispanics, who make up 16 percent of respondents, broke for the president, 74 to 23 percent, versus Romney.

Seventy-one percent say they have either already voted or plan to vote early. Obama leads with those who say they have already voted (53 to 45 percent) and by a wider margin with those who have not yet decided if they will vote early or on Election Day (53 to 38 percent). 

How crucial is the Latino vote in these two states to Obama?

“In a close race, every group makes a difference,” Miringoff said, but this group really makes a difference. It’s keeping him in the contest in these states.” 

The polls were conducted Oct. 23 to 24. The Nevada poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent among likely voters. The Colorado poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow