Other races

Sara Jerome, our colleague over at the Hillicon Valley blog, reports Google released a list of the candidates that were "the most searched for" on Google News during the month of October.

They are:

1. California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R)


2. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)


3. Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul
 (R)

4. California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown
 (D)

5. Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle
 (R)

6. New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino (D)


7. Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahon
 (R)

8. Speaker Nancy Pelosi
 (D-Calif.)

9. Sen. Patty Murray
 (D-Wash.)

10. Florida Senate candidate Charlie Crist (I)

Former President Bill Clinton will spend the day before the election on a four-state campaign swing.

He'll campaign for candidates in New York, Kentucky, West Virginia and Florida throughout Monday.

With observers saying Republicans gains could be higher than previously predicted, Clinton will hit a race in his adopted home state and then campaign for three Democratic Senate candidates in tight races.

In New York, Clinton will campaign with Rep. Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.) in his toss-up raced against Republican challenger Chris Gibson.

In Kentucky, he will campaign with Senate candidate Jack Conway (D) in his race against Republican Rand Paul.

In West Virginia, Clinton will hit the campaign trail with Gov. Joe Manchin (D) in his bid for Senate against Republican John Raese.  Raese had brought Sarah Palin in over the weekend to campaign for him.

And, in Florida, Clinton will campaign with Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink.  The Meek appearance was announced this past weekend, after reports broke Clinton asked Meek to drop out of the race and throw his support to Independent candidate Charlie Crist. Clinton and Meek both denied Clinton asked Meek to withdraw from the race.  Meek is in a distant third place in the polls behind Crist and Republican candidate Marco Rubio.

Republicans need a net gain of 39 seats to re-take the House of Representatives and 10 seats to re-take the Senate.

President Obama, who spent the weekend on a four-state swing for get-out-the-vote rallies, has no public events scheduled for Monday.

CLEVELAND -- Staring down the prospect of big losses in Congress, President Obama and Vice President Biden made one last appeal.

CLEVELAND -- The arena where they appealed to Democrats to get out and vote Tuesday was far from capacity Sunday afternoon.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said that a Republican majority in the Senate would be "a difficult path."

The National Education Association (NEA) has expanded its campaign operations for the midterm elections.

In the face of a difficult election climate for Democrats, the teachers union added 25 congressional districts to its get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort last week. It's running radio and television ads in the Pennsylvania and Washington Senate races, as well as in Rep. Tim Bishop’s (D-N.Y.) district.

It is all part of a $40 million campaign by the nation’s largest union, with 3.2 million members, to help elect candidates who support public education.

“The playing field is vast. We wanted to make sure we do everything we can to help these education champions,” Karen White, the NEA’s national political director, told The Hill.

Overall, the union is campaigning in 20 gubernatorial races, 14 Senate races and more than 80 House races.

Democratic mega-firm MSHC Partners, a giant in the political consulting industry, is shutting its doors after Nov. 2.

The firm, which provides direct mail, fundraising and online strategy and targeting for candidates, is breaking up into into what Chairman Hal Malchow calls "two successor firms."

The company's client list includes the Democratic National Committee, the AFL-CIO, EMILY's List, numerous state Democratic parties and House and Senate campaigns.

MSHC has also worked on the presidential campaigns of former President Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Three of the firm's current partners will head two new companies. One will continue most of the firm's direct mail business and be led by Trish Hoppey and Dean Levitan, while the other will be an Internet strategy firm headed up by Amy Gonzales.

"Politics has gotten too negative for me," Malchow told The Hill. "Every year it gets worse, and I really just need to take a step back from it at this point."

Malchow, one of the founders of the political consulting industry, said he is "mostly leaving the business" after Election Day, though he anticipates still having some involvement with a handful of clients.

Rumors of financial trouble for the firm accompany the news of the firm's split, but Malchow said "there's not any financial problem that we can't handle."

Fellow consultants are already scouring the firm's client list, which is one of the biggest in the industry, in the hopes of picking up new business. 

Former President Clinton will hit the campaign trail Sunday in Michigan for Rep. Mark Schauer (D-Mich.), Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero (D).

Dingell and Schauer both face tough challenges from Tea Party-backed candidates.

Dingell's race has gotten more competitive as the election gets closer. One of the possible factors: Michigan has the second highest unemployment rate among the 50 states.

Schauer, meanwhile, faces a difficult reelection battle against former GOP Rep. Tim Walberg (R), whom he defeated in 2008.

The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll from earlier this month showed Schauer and Walberg tied at 41 percent, but a recent Epic MRA poll showed Schauer with a 7-point lead over Walberg. 

The former president has been popular on the campaign trail this cycle, campaigning nationwide for vulnerable Democrats. Among the states at which he's made stops: Arkansas, California, Florida, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He is in Maryland on Thursday to help Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin O'Malley.

President Obama and Vice President Biden will crisscross the country this week delivering the party’s closing argument to voters. 

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) is trying to use comedian Stephen Colbert’s upcoming rally in the nation’s capital to promote her push to grant Washington, D.C., a voting representative in Congress.

Norton urged D.C. voters on Thursday to post on her Facebook page the reasons why they think the city should gain a voting representative in Congress, using “as much wit as Colbert uses to make fun of us for not having our full rights,” she said.

“The buzz surrounding the Colbert and Jon Stewart rallies coming to D.C. on October 30, is too great an opportunity to miss to pay back Colbert and to remind those who come that, unlike Colbert, D.C. has a cause worthy of a rally,” said Norton in a press release.

Colbert and Stewart are holding their events — “The March to Keep Fear Alive” and the “Rally to Restore Sanity,” respectively — on the National Mall at the end of this month, after being spurred to action by a rally held by Fox News pundit Glenn Beck and other conservative figures in August.

Colbert, who gained new notoriety on Capitol Hill with his testimony before the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law last month, has often jabbed at Norton for D.C.’s lack of representational vote when she’s appeared on his show, "The Colbert Report."

The D.C. Voting Rights Act — legislation that would grant both Utah and D.C. a new voting representative in Congress — failed to get through Congress so far this session. The National Rifle Association prompted Republicans to threaten attaching an amendment to the measure that would loosen D.C.’s gun laws. The move made some conservative Democrats wary of supporting the measure. Norton has often said the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill gives the bill its best chances at passage.