COLUMBUS, OH -- The campaign stops of the 2012 election have ceased feeling like rock concerts -- they've become rock concerts.

It took no less than two of music's two biggest stars, Bruce Springsteen and Jay Z, to join forces on behalf of President Barack Obama on Monday to drive that point home.

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obama is greeted on stage by rapper Jay-Z at an election campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio, November 5, 2012 on the eve of the U.S. presidential elections.

But before the show and the afterparty and the hotel lobby, there’s the plane ride to the next gig. 

Springsteen told one reporter that his first flight on Air Force One, from Madison, Wis. to Columbus, was "pretty cool," and that he and the president had a chance to chat about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey. And according to the Associated Press, the president also handed the phone over to Springsteen after getting an update on Sandy recovery from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Once at the gig, it had become clear that Springsteen has gotten a little bit of his own stump speech together for these events. For the second time today, he told a tongue-in-cheek story about the president asking him to write a campaign song that includes the campaign’s theme of “Forward” and the president’s name.  He then performed the hastily crafted song that includes lines like, “Usually this time of day I’m in my pajamas. Well, let’s vote for the man who got Osama. Forward and away we go.”

The 15,500-person audience in the not-quite-full Nationwide Arena enjoyed Springsteen’s performance, but it took a huge American flag unfurling, unrelenting bass and, well, Jay-Z to get hands in the air.

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

"HOVA" performed crowd-pleasers like "Run this Town" and "Public Service Announcement." He also modified a line or two of "99 Problems," attempting to remove any profanities and replace it with a cleaner version. (The result? “I’ve got 99 problems but a Mitt ain’t one.” Still, a couple of curse words in his background vocals slipped through the cracks.)

The president seemed to enjoy his last day of campaigning with the rock stars, inviting the two on stage at the end for a photo op and saying for the second time today, “I'm …flying with Bruce Springsteen on the last day that I'll ever campaign; that's not a bad way to bring it home, with 'The Boss.'"

FAIRFAX, VA -- Mitt Romney barnstormed the Old Dominion on this final full day of campaigning, cramming two stops, separated by hundreds of miles, in this hotly-contested swing state over the course of just a few hours.

Here on the campus of George Mason University, Romney was greeted by his best crowd of the day for a boisterous rally that seemed to overwhelm the GOP nominee, prompting him to joke that the attendees must have been expecting someone else to take the stage.

"That is really something special. I am looking around to see if we have the Beatles here or something to have brought you but it looks like you came just for the campaign and I appreciate it," Romney said to 8,000 supporters here. "Your voices and your energy and your passion are being heard all over the nation."

Romney's rally here was a rare foray into Fairfax County, which broke heavily Democratic in 2008 and where he must cut into President Barack Obama's margins to carry the state.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann Romney wave to the crowd at a Virginia campaign rally at The Patriot Center at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., Monday, Nov. 5, 2012.

Romney touched down in Lynchburg, Virginia earlier in the afternoon for a lunchtime rally on the tarmac before a smaller crowd of a few thousand supporters. This was safer territory for the Republican nominee, since Arizona Sen. John McCain carried all of the surrounding counties in 2008 and are expected to remain in the GOP column this fall.

To carry Virginia on Tuesday, Republicans will likely need to run up wide margins in these central and western counties, and Romney opened his remarks in Lynchburg by thanking the volunteers in crowd, and urging them to do yet more in the race's final hours.

"Your voices are being heard all over the nation loud and clear, thank you. I also want to thank many of you in this crowd that have been out there working on the campaign. Making calls from the victory centers, and by putting up a yard sign, in your neighbor's yard," Romney joked.

"This is a campaign about America and about the future we’re going to leave to our children. And we ask that you stay at this all the way until victory on Tuesday night," he continued.

Romney did add a tinge of conservatism to his usual "closing argument" speech, blaming Obama for being overattentive to a "liberal agenda" at the expense of minding the economy. Romney also warned of the specter of "card check," a union organizing reform law detested by conservatives.

Updated 4:08 p.m. ET - STERLING, VA -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign announced Monday afternoon that the candidate would add two campaign stops on Election Day in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

A campaign official said Romney would make stops in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, part of what the GOP nominee's campaign called an effort to "keep working until the polls close."

Romney campaign advisers have eyed Pennsylvania in recent weeks as a backstop against losing other battleground states, especially as Obama has managed to maintain a mostly consistent if slight advantage over Romney in Ohio. Pennsylvania lacks a robust early voting effort and the vast majority of ballots are cast on election day. Romney's campaign and outside groups supporting it have poured money into television advertising there in recent weeks.

Pittsburgh has advantage of bleeding over into the Ohio media markets, too.

David Goldman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney waves to supporters after finishing his speech at a campaign event at the Lynchburg Regional Airport, Monday, Nov. 5, 2012.

In Cleveland, Romney will visit his campaign's victory office, according to a Republican operative familiar with the campaign's plans.

Romney will travel to the two Midwestern battlegrounds after voting in Belmont, Massachusetts on Tuesday morning.

On Monday, Romney barnstormed across four swing states, with rallies in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. The New Hampshire midnight rally in in Manchester had been billed as the campaign's finale.

Jen Psaki, the traveling campaign spokeswoman for President Barack Obama, suggested the stop was a sign of weakness.

Slideshow: Election 2012

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

Campaigning with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, voting and election results.

Launch slideshow

"I will say it's no surprise that Mitt Romney is headed to Ohio, or reportedly headed to Ohio tomorrow," she told reporters in a gaggle aboard Air Force One. "Without that state it's a rocky road to victory -- an insurmountable road I would say."

Romney campaign advisers say the candidate himself decided on Monday to add the last minute stops, preferring to motivate volunteers and supporters by showing them that he was working just as hard as they are in the final hours, to sitting at home and waiting for results to come in.

Updated 2:35 p.m. ET -- Four days before voters head to the polls, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney sought to bring their different economic visions into sharp relief before throngs of Midwestern voters who could decide the election.

Romney, who delivered on Friday what he said was the “closing argument” of his campaign, said the economy was hopelessly mired in stagnation under Obama, and promised to deliver “real change” if elected.

Jim Young / Reuters

Supporters of Mitt Romney gesture at a campaign rally in West Allis, Wis., Nov. 2, 2012.

Obama pointed to green shoots of economic recovery while barnstorming battleground Ohio, accusing his Republican opponent of deception on the question of change, as well as the 2009 auto industry rescue that could swing the outcome of the election.

Romney started the day with a speech in the battleground state of Wisconsin, assailing Obama for having failed at his promise to change Washington; Romney said his experience in the private sector and as governor of Massachusetts has shown he can boost the economy and bridge partisan divides that have grinded lawmaking in the nation’s capital to a virtual halt.

“The question of this election comes down to this: do you want more of the same or do you want real change?” Romney asked. “President Obama promised change, but he could not deliver it. I promise change, and I have a record of achieving it.”

A robust campaign schedule for Obama and Romney, along with their running mates, brought the campaign back to its central issue -- jobs and the economy -- just as a key monthly employment report showed that the U.S. added more jobs than expected in October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that the economy added 171,000 jobs last month -- though the unemployment rate inched upward to 7.9 percent as the size of the American workforce grew.

Check out the NBC News' Election Briefing Book

“This morning we learned that companies hired more workers in October than at any time in the last eight months,” Obama said at a Friday rally in Ohio. “We've made real progress, but we are here today because we know we've got more work to do. As long as there's a single American who wants a job but can't find one ... our fight goes on.”

The stasis in campaigning that set in following the landfall of Hurricane Sandy earlier this week had all but faded Friday, as both campaigns resumed their full-throated critiques of one another.

Romney sought to wrest the mantle of “change” away from Obama, continuing on a theme he has stressed in recent weeks, and going so far as warning on Friday that if the U.S. doesn't change course, it could risk slipping back into recession.

Obama has long blamed Republican obstructionism and special interests for impeding his agenda, and thereby, the pace of economic recovery.

Romney, who made his first stop in Wisconsin since naming Paul Ryan, a congressman from the state, as his running mate, suggested his experience as governor of Massachusetts and a former private equity executive would help him succeed where Obama had failed.

Jobs data unlikely to sway undecided voters

"I have watched over these last few months as our campaign has gathered the strength of a movement," Romney said. "I will reach out to both sides of the aisle. I will bring people together, doing big things for the common good. I won’t just represent one party, I’ll represent one nation. I’ll try to show the best of America, at a time when only our best will do."

Romney traveled next to Ohio, where he would join Obama in courting the vote of the Buckeye State -- a pivotal Midwestern battleground where the outcome could determine the winner of the Electoral College.

There, the president upbraided Romney on the notion that the Republican nominee could deliver change, ridiculing the GOP nominee’s proposals as little more than warmed-over leftovers from the Bush administration.

“We know what the right choice is, but let's face it, Gov. Romney is a talented salesman,” he said, accusing his Republican opponent of repackaging tired GOP ideas. “We know what change looks like, and what the governor's offering ain't it.”

The Obama campaign has relied on Ohio to serve as a kind of “firewall” for the president, concentrating for months on building an advantage over Romney in hopes of impeding the GOP candidate’s path to 270 electoral votes. Obama has led Romney by a slim, but consistent, margin in most public polls, prompting the Republican ticket to ratchet up its attacks on the administration’s handling of the auto industry bailout.

Romney’s offensive includes a series of new ads taking aim at the president on the issue of the auto industry bailout, stoking (incorrect) fears that Jeep would move production and jobs from the U.S. to China.

First Thoughts: A status-quo election?

Those suggestions earned him a strong rebuke from both the president, as well as Vice President Biden, who campaigned in Wisconsin, a state that has reliably supported Democrats in recent presidential cycles.

"Everyone knows it’s not true. The car companies themselves have told Gov. Romney to knock it off," Obama said of the ads, accusing Romney of trying to scare the state’s autoworkers. "You don’t scare hardworking Americans just to scare up some votes. That’s not what being president is all about. That’s not leadership."

Biden, speaking in Beloit, went a step further: “In the last hours of this campaign, Romney and Ryan have become truly desperate. Romney will say anything to win.”

But Republicans returned to the issue of employment, arguing Friday that the employment situation had scarcely improved over the last four years, and hardly matched the White House’s projections upon selling its stimulus package in January of 2009. That, they said, justified Obama’s expulsion from office.

“In the president’s campaign for another term, he has offered nothing different and if he is re-elected, nothing different is exactly what we would get,” Ryan said at a rally in Colorado. “And we are not going to let him get away with that are we?”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Barack Obama on Thursday, invoking Hurricane Sandy and the president's work to address climate change.

As New York reels from the fallout of this week's hurricane, which caused 37 deaths in the city, Bloomberg said Obama was better-suited than Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to curb carbon emissions.

"The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast – in lost lives, lost homes and lost business – brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief," Bloomberg wrote. "Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be – given this week's devastation – should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action."

The three-term mayor and billionaire further lauded Obama for taking "major steps to reduce our carbon consumption." In turn, Bloomberg said that on the issue of climate change, Romney had "reversed course, abandoning the very cap-and-trade program he once supported."

A former Republican who has since declared himself independent, Bloomberg did not make an endorsement for president in 2008. He cited other issues, including Obama's health care reform law, approach to abortion rights and support for same-sex marriage, in reaching his conclusion.

Eduardo Munoz / Reuters

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to the media during a news conference about Updates to New Yorkers on Preparations for Hurricane Sandy in New York, October 26, 2012.

"I'm honored to have Mayor Bloomberg's endorsement. I deeply respect him for his leadership in business, philanthropy and government, and appreciate the extraordinary job he's doing right now, leading New York City through these difficult days," Obama said in a statement.

The endorsement comes, though, amid one of the worst storms to batter the New York area in recent history, Obama's response to which has drawn him plaudits from a bipartisan array of figures, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R).

Obama also added: "While we may not agree on every issue, Mayor Bloomberg and I agree on the most important issues of our time - that the key to a strong economy is investing in the skills and education of our people, that immigration reform is essential to an open and dynamic democracy, and that climate change is a threat to our children's future, and we owe it to them to do something about it."

*** UPDATE *** An Obama campaign official told NBC's Kristen Welker it's impossible to know the impact of the endorsement but called it a "net positive" citing the fact that Bloomberg has an audience of independent-minded voters. Campaign officials say they were made aware the of the endorsement before Bloomberg announced it.  

One Republican operative suggested the endorsement could actually hurt the president calling Bloomberg "the most anti-gun politician" in the country. The operative predicted the endorsement won't play well in states with heavy-hunting populations like, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Minnesota.  "So congratulations, Mr. President," the operative said sardonically. 

Updated 12:58 p.m. ET — President Barack Obama urged Americans to heed local officials' warnings about Hurricane Sandy on Monday as his re-election said it would determine the president's campaign schedule on a "day-to-day basis."

The president appeared at the White House and said he was "confident" states and local governments were prepared to weather the megastorm barreling toward the East Coast of the United States, though he cautioned that it could take time to restore transportation and electricity in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Obama said Sandy would be "a slow-moving storm through a wide swath of the country."

"We're confident that the assets are pre-positioned for an effective response in the aftermath of this storm," he added.

The hurricane forced Obama to cut short a trip to Florida and canceled events scheduled for Tuesday. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney followed suit, as he and running mate Paul Ryan canceled most of their events on Monday afternoon and Tuesday.

The storm reshuffled the race for the presidency, just eight days before voters head to the polls. Surrogates for Obama — like former President Bill Clinton — stepped forward in place of the president at campaign events as Obama remained in Washington to handle the storm. In addition to canceling stops in Colorado and Virginia, the White House said Monday that Obama would no longer travel to Wisconsin tomorrow, either. The next campaign events on Obama's schedule are on Wednesday, in Ohio.

Romney canceled an afternoon event in Wisconsin and Ryan would no longer appear in Florida. 

"Governor Romney believes this is a time for the nation and its leaders to come together to focus on those Americans who are in harms way," said Gail Gitcho, Romney's communications director. "We will provide additional details regarding Governor Romney's and Congressman Ryan's schedule when they are available." 

Obama met in the White House situation room in order to be “updated on the latest forecast for Hurricane Sandy and the extensive federal effort underway to support the state and local response to this historic storm," according to press secretary Jay Carney. Multiple cabinet secretaries, many members of the president’s White House staff and the heads of FEMA and the National Hurricane Center will participate in this meeting.

But the president's official duties put his campaign schedule in flux, just as the presidential campaign enters its final phase.

"The president's focus is on the storm and governing the country and making sure our people are safe," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said on a conference call with reporters. He said the president's campaign would take scheduling on a day-by-day basis. 

"We're obviously going to lose a bunch of campaign time, but that's obviously how it has to be, and we'll try to make it up on the back end," added David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign. 

Speaking Monday afternoon at the White House, the president said he wasn't concerned about the potential impact of the storm on voting. 

"I am not worried at this point on the impact on the election," he said. "I'm worried about the impact on families and our first responders."

Clinton took Obama's place at a rally this morning in Wisconsin and was set to join Vice President Joe Biden in Ohio later this afternoon. 

Romney pushed forward with his campaign schedule on Monday, which took him to Ohio early in the day and to Wisconsin later in the day. The Republican's campaign put a hold on its fundraising pitches to voters in states in Hurricane Sandy's path, and urged supporters to remove lawn signs for fear that they might become debris. 

Romney campaign offices also collected donations to the Red Cross, items which its bus was supposed to deliver to storm victims.

"Sandy is another devastating hurricane by all accounts, and a lot of people are going to be facing some real tough times as a result of Sandy's fury. And so if you have the capacity to make a donation to the American Red Cross, you can go online and do that," the former Massachusetts governor told an overflow crowd in Avon Lake, Ohio. "If there are other ways that you can help, please take advantage of them because there will be a lot of people that are going to be looking for help and the people in Ohio have big hearts, so we're expecting you to follow through and help out."

NBC's Shawna Thomas contributed reporting.

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

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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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama delivers doughnuts to fire fighters at a fire house in Tampa, Fla., Oct. 25, 2012.

RICHMOND, VA -- President Barack Obama touted the endorsement of former Secretary of State and retired Gen. Colin Powell's endorsement, suggesting it was a nod of support to his record on foreign policy and defense.

Addressing a crowd of 15,000 here at a public park, Obama said, "I was proud to learn that we have Colin Powell's support in this campaign."

"I'm grateful to him for his lifetime of service to his country both as a soldier and a diplomat. And every brave American who wears this uniform of this country should know that as long as I am your Commander in Chief, we will sustain the strongest military this world has ever known.

"We will be relentless in pursuit of our enemies. Those are promises I've kept."

Military spending is a key issue in swing state Virginia, home to several bases as well as many civilian defense employees, who live primarily in Northern Virginia.

"President Obama says that ‘trust matters,’ but Virginians already know that he cannot be trusted to protect our military or our economy. Under President Obama, our military stands to be cut by nearly $1 trillion and he has no plan whatsoever to save the 136,000 Virginia jobs that could be eliminated because of his cuts," said Curt Cashour, Romney's spokesman for Virginia. "To make matters worse, the president’s liberal policies are killing jobs in Virginia as we speak."

After his speech, the president was headed to Chicago where he would become the first sitting president to vote early in person.

CINCINNATI, OH -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign announced on Thursday that its Victory fund had hauled in a record $111.8 million dollars in the first two weeks of October.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, accompanied by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) (C), picks up food at First Watch cafe in Cincinnati, Ohio October 25.

The Republican victory effort had amassed a $169 million warchest for its final push to Election Day, the Romney campaign said. Its record fundraising was tabulated through Oct. 17, which includes the first two presidential debates.

The Romney Victory fund, a joint fundraising venture by the Romney campaign, the Republican National Committee and four state Republican parties allied with the Romney camp, raised $170 million for the GOP contender in September. October's haul is on pace to far surpass that number.

“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are offering a vision for the country that will finally bring a real recovery to the American people. Their plan will bring much needed change after the last four years and it is why we have seen such momentum and strong support from our donors," Romney national finance chairman Spencer Zwick said in a statement accompanying the release.

With less than two weeks remaining in the fall campaign, today's release could be intended in part to continue to project momentum and strength for the Romney campaign, themes the candidate has sought to emphasize at each appearance on the campaign trail.

"There's no question about it. We're seeing more and more enthusiasm, more and more support," Romney said on Tuesday in Nevada. "We're going to make sure that these campaigns and the message of these debates, rather, these messages, keep going across the country."

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

Much of the $169 million the Romney team had on hand as of last week is earmarked for fueling that message with both ad spending and get-out-the-vote efforts increasing in intensity.

Earlier this week, a Romney adviser said the campaign has inquired about air time for a possible 30-minute infomercial to air in swing states, and the money could also be used to broaden Romney's electoral map. Pennsylvania, with its expensive media markets, could become a target for the Romney campaign, which has flirted with the state but not yet fully engaged, including not running TV ads.

There's also no sign that the money well will dry up for Romney any time soon. Tonight in Dallas the campaign will hold a fundraiser headlined by former Vice President Dick Cheney, and Romney's son Josh and featuring a video appearance from Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan, that organizers say is expected to raise more than two million dollars.

RENO, NV -- Mitt Romney returned to Nevada for the second straight day on Wednesday, hoping to boost support in this critical Western battleground by personalizing his message to different slices of Silver State voters.

Romney again claimed his three debates versus President Barack Obama, the last of which was on Monday in Florida, claiming the post-debate momentum and seizing the mantle of being the candidate of "change."

"We’ve had four debates and he hasn’t been able to describe what his plan is to get this economy going. He hasn’t been able to defend it to the American people," Romney said of his debates with President Obama, as well as the VP debate. "I know he’s got a lot of discussion he’s trying to talk to people about it but you know you can boil what he’s saying down to four simple words: And that is more of the same. And we don’t want more of the same. We can’t afford four more years like the last four years."

Romney has hammered at that message at each of three campaign stops since the final debate Monday night, looking to convince voters his campaign has momentum and that the president's cause is fizzling.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan talk on the tarmac at the airport in Denver, Colorado before parting ways to campaign separately October 24, 2012.

"The Obama campaign is slipping and shrinking," Romney told the 2,000-plus supporters gathered here today. "The president can't seem to find an agenda to help America's families."

The GOP nominee, who has sometimes struggled to connect personally with voters, today amended his stump speech to touch on how his plan would be better for Americans in specific demographic groups, using the issue of debt and deficits to appeal for support from young women by describing how debts run up by the president could cost them a chance at the American dream.

"Let me tell you how else this might affect, might affect your family, how this choice that you’re making will make a difference in your family. You might have a daughter graduating from college this spring. And she’s gonna come out and she’s gonna probably have 10 or $20,000 in student loans to pay back, and she’s going to be paying the interest on that for a long, long time," Romney said.

"But in addition to those loans, there’s something else that she has, about $50,000 per person for America in debt," Romney said of a hypothetical young woman who graduated from college with student loan debt. "And so when she gets her first paycheck and she sees the deductions for taxes, some of those taxes are going to pay for that debt, and for things she didn’t get, for things that our generation took upon ourselves. And she’s going to be paying for that all of her life. And so the American dream she had been told about by you, her parents, that American dream is going to be out of reach."

In Nevada, the state with the nation's worst unemployment rate, currently stuck at 11.8 percent, Romney did not linger more than usual on his five-point jobs plan, but promised the steps would "get America's economy just cooking again."

To win Nevada's six electoral votes, Romney advisers say the GOP candidate must overperform here in Washoe county, which broke for Obama by 12 points in 2008 but is traditionally more of a swing county. A strong performance there would be necessary to counteract the union-backed Democratic machine in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, and the state's largest population center.

Voters like Steve Wren, 50, a pastor at a church in Reno and a self-described "pro-life Democrat," could be key to Romney's success here. Wren joined his wife, who is supporting Romney, at today's event and told NBC News before the event began that he was still unsure if he would vote for the GOP nominee this time around, after reluctantly breaking from his lifelong support for Democrats to vote for Sen. John McCain in 2008.

"I think he made it clear with what he said. I think its pretty obvious that, well, its obvious to me, that I don't really like where we're going and so we sort of have one choice," Wren said after the rally, adding that he would most likely be voting for Romney after being pleasantly surprised by how "genuine and real" Romney seemed in person.

"I heard a lot of the stuff that I've always heard, so maybe it was just being here and seeing him in person but there was just something that seemed really passionate and genuine, so I was touched by that," Wren said. 

If Ohio has been President Barack Obama’s “firewall” – the state guarding against a disappointing Electoral College result on Nov. 6 – then the president’s re-election team might consider Obama’s well-publicized auto industry rescue as a type of firewall within a firewall.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stands on a table as he addresses an overflow crowd as he campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012.

Obama has taken every effort to remind voters in Ohio of his authorization of a 2009 bailout of General Motors and Chrysler that is widely credited with preserving the companies as they stood on the brink of catastrophe. In the same breath, the president is sure to mention the op-ed – “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” – penned by Romney for the New York Times, which called for a managed bankruptcy for the automakers supported partially by government guarantees.

There are real differences between how Obama sought the auto industry rescue and how Romney, judging by his own comments at the time, might have engineered support for GM and Chrysler. But if the Republican presidential nominee manages to win Midwestern states like Ohio and Wisconsin on Nov. 6, he could point to his recent messaging on the auto bailout as a reason why.

Romney has essentially tried to take credit for Obama’s actions, arguing that it was the president who ended up following Romney’s counsel all along, and lead GM and Chrysler toward a “managed bankruptcy.”

"He said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt. And that’s right. My plan was to have the company go through bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy’s and Continental Airlines and come out stronger," Romney said at last week's second presidential debate in New York. "And I know he keeps saying, 'You want to take Detroit bankrupt.' Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did."

Romney’s semantic argument, though, obscures a gulf between him and Obama over how such a managed bankruptcy would have been managed and its implications for the industry.

First Read wrote in February – as Romney sought to win Michigan’s Republican primary – about the precise differences between Obama and Romney when it comes to the bailout.

The separation between Romney and Obama on the issue of the bailout stems from two issues. First, Romney argues that interests of the labor unions were unfairly favored over some of GM and Chrysler's private creditors. The government-supervised bankruptcy did this, he argues, by allowing the autoworkers’ retirees program an equity stake in the restructured GM in exchange for providing financial support for the bankruptcy.

Second, Romney appears to differ with the president over the extent to which government itself should have stepped forward with money to help stave off liquidation of GM and Chrysler and provide for the restructuring process. The administration's approach did this in the case of GM by essentially establishing a new, restructured company in which the government became a majority shareholder. (Romney argued Tuesday for the government to divest itself from the company.)

Romney's position in the past has been that the private sector could have stepped forward to finance and more effectively manage the bankruptcy process -- especially in a way that would have treated private stakeholders in the companies more fairly.

One of the key points, though, involves the type of support Romney would have offered to the companies. His original op-ed called for the government to back warrantees and guarantee private sector financing for the companies when they emerged from bankruptcy. But the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing the various bailouts questioned whether any private financing would have been available in the first place, given the credit crunch in early 2009.

“Gov. Romney, you keep on trying to, you know, airbrush history here,” Obama said on the topic of autos Monday evening at a third debate versus Romney. “You were very clear that you would not provide, government assistance to the U.S. auto companies, even if they went through bankruptcy. You said that they could get it in the private marketplace. That wasn’t true.”

Setting aside the candidates’ very different approaches, what is clear is that, for months now, Romney has tried to play offense on the issue of autos. And his success in states like Ohio – where one in eight jobs is said to have ties to the auto industry – may depend on Romney’s ability to convince Midwestern voters that GM and Chrysler would be doing just as well as they are now if he were president instead of Obama.

It appears voters are interested in learning more. As a New York Times spokesperson noted on Twitter, Romney’s original Nov. 18, 2008 op-ed, skyrocketed Tuesday to the top of the list of the most-read stories on the Times website.

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Continuing the argument he voiced on network morning news shows today, Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that GOP nominee Mitt Romney is vacillating between saber-rattling and dovishness on foreign policy.

"Last night you saw Gov. Romney rushing to agree with President Obama," Biden told a crowd of over a thousand at the University of Toledo, adding a "whoa!" for good measure.

J.D. Pooley / AP

Vice President Joe Biden gestures while speaking during at a campaign rally, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, at The University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio.

The vice president said he was "stunned and pleased that Gov. Romney had disavowed so many things he's said in the past and acknowledged that the president was right on so many things."

"Some days they go out there and rattle the sabers, some days they are doves carrying olive branches," he added. "The only thing consistent ... about the way they talk about policy is that they are inconsistent."

The argument echoes his comments to NBC's TODAY that he was "surprised" to hear so much agreement from the GOP nominee.

Biden also won cheers from the friendly crowd for knocking the Republican ticket's "foreign policy out of the 80s, a social policy out of the 50s, and an economic policy out of the 20s."

The rally coincided with the Obama campaign's new push to publicize its vision for the next four years, condensed in a glossy packet that awaited the traveling press arriving at the event. Brandishing a copy, Biden conceded that it "sounds so trite to hold up a plan" but that "it's all here" in the 20-page brochure.

Biden's next event today is a joint rally with the president in Dayton.