J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, finishes a prepared statement to reporters about the elections and the unfinished business of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, emerged in the aftermath of Tuesday’s presidential election to strike a conciliatory note, offering to work with President Barack Obama on a grand bargain to avert the impact of the coming fiscal cliff.

The top House Republican argued for new negotiations with Democrats and the newly re-elected Obama administration on an overarching fiscal deal linking together reforms to entitlements and the tax code.

Boehner said that Republicans would be “willing to accept new revenue, under the right conditions,” though those very conditions could be as beguiling as ever.

The speaker offered no clue as to whether Republicans would relent from their insistence (made during fiscal negotiations last year) that any sort of tax reform package not constitute anything even remotely resembling a tax hike.

Obama has spoken favorably about tax reform – including during his victory speech last night in Chicago – but in such a way that wealthier Americans would face the increased tax burden.

Resolving that very open question could prove the key to resolving – or exacerbating – the fiscal impasse that has plagued Washington for the better part of the last two years.

Romney never overcame bailout opposition

“Shoring up entitlements and reforming the tax code – closing special interest loopholes and deductions, and moving to a fairer, simpler system – will bring jobs home and result in a stronger, healthier economy,” Boehner said during a Wednesday afternoon statement on Capitol Hill.

By the same token, the speaker suggested that a deal was untenable during the coming lame-duck Congress, calling for a “down payment” on fiscal reform that would give both parties ample space to negotiate in early 2013.

Full national election results

Boehner’s words reflected the immediacy of the challenge before lawmakers in the coming weeks if they are to successfully avoid the “fiscal cliff,” the nickname for the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to spring into place at the beginning of next year.

Economists have warned that this combination, the byproduct of legislative gridlock on issues of tax and spending during the last two years, would imperil the economic recovery in the U.S.

The election on Tuesday maintained Republican control of the House, Democratic control of the Senate and, Obama’s control of the White House – the same basic makeup of government that produced gridlock on fiscal issues for the past two years.

The White House said Wednesday that Obama, just hours after securing re-election, phoned leaders of both parties in the House and the Senate. During those call, the president “reiterated his commitment to finding bipartisan solutions to: reduce our deficit in a balanced way, cut taxes for middle class families and small businesses and create jobs.”

But as Boehner called for more time to address the looming fiscal crisis, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested he was disinclined to extend the timeline for reaching a deal.

“I’m not for kicking the can down the road. I think we’ve done that far too much,” he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “Waiting for a month, six weeks, six months – that’s not going to solve the problem. We know what needs to be done, so I think we should just roll up our sleeves and get it done.”

First Thoughts: Obama's demographic edge

The dueling statements, though, set the parameters for fiscal talks that are set to dominate political discourse in the coming months.

The fight plays out amid election results that, as Vice President Joe Biden asserted on Wednesday, provided the administration with a “clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy.”

Almost two-thirds of voters, according to national exit polls, said “no” when asked whether taxes should be raised to help cut the budget deficit. But 47 percent of voters, a plurality, said that taxes should increase only on those earning more than $250,000 – a centerpiece of Obama’s re-election campaign on which Obama stumped this fall.

Barring any action by Congress, tax rates would spring upward for all income brackets as the 2001 Bush-era tax cuts, which were extended for two years in 2009, expired.

The spending “sequester,” established by Congress during the 2011 debt ceiling deal as an incentive for lawmakers to reach a compromise budgetary solution, is also set to take effect at the beginning of next year absent an agreement by Congress. Republicans have grown especially worrisome about the sequester because of the heavy cuts it would make to the defense budget.

As the business of legislating resumes, a key actor in the process could be Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the former Republican vice presidential nominee who lost Tuesday as Mitt Romney’s running mate. Ryan simultaneously won re-election to Congress, and said Wednesday in a statement that he intends to resume his post as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

As Republicans sort through what went wrong for former Republican nominee Mitt Romney on Tuesday, they might look back ruefully at four words that became forever associated with the GOP nominee: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

There are varied reasons for President Barack Obama's re-election to a second term, from changing demographics to superior campaign organization and beyond. And Obama's broad margin in the Electoral College meant that no single state was responsible for his victory over Romney.

David Goldman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrives to his election-night rally, Wednesday, Nov. 7, in Boston.

But as Republicans begin to pick through the aftermath of Romney's loss, Romney's struggles to address his opposition the 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler stymied an effort to gain a foothold in Obama's Midwestern "firewall," and turn his attention to other key battleground states.

Related: Romney's chances in Ohio tied to softening auto bailout stance

It was an issue with which Romney struggled for the duration of the campaign, as Obama traipsed across Midwestern states, hammering away against his Republican opponent on the issue, while touting the resurgence of GM and Chrysler following the billions in aid provided to the companies.

A strong majority - 60 percent - of voters on Tuesday in Ohio said that they had approved of the auto bailout, and Obama beat Romney among those voters by a healthy 73 to 25 percent difference.

In Wisconsin, another state that composed Obama's firewall (along with Iowa), a majority of voters - 53 percent - said they had approved of the bailout. Obama bested Romney among those voters, 79 to 20 percent.

Those numbers suggest that Romney's effort over the past year to recast his opposition to the bailout, put bluntly, failed.

Romney's New York Times op-ed opposing then-President George W. Bush's efforts to extend aid to the troubled automakers came just weeks after the 2008 election -- four years ago next Saturday, to be exact.

And while it's unlikely that the former Massachusetts governor himself wrote the provocative headline that would stick with him through his 2012 campaign, he wrestled and struggled with the issue throughout his battle with Obama.

Even in the primaries, Romney's conservative challengers argued it was callous for him to have supported the Wall Street bailout while opposing the auto rescue, especially as a native son of Michigan whose father ran a car company when Romney was young.

Romney reasoned that the managed bankruptcy endured by GM and Chrysler was actually his idea in the first place. And then he pivoted to argue that bondholders and dealers were shortchanged in that process, to the benefit of autoworkers' unions, which had backed Obama in 2008.

But neither of those arguments seemed to resonate in the long term, prompting Romney in the closing weeks of the campaign to address his deficiency with a deeply misleading pair of radio and TV ads stoking fears that Jeep was planning to move production from the U.S. to China.

Those ads were ostensibly an effort to make gains with swing voters in the outlying areas surrounding Toledo, the home to a major Jeep production facility.

But Obama carried Lucas County, which includes Toledo, last night by the same margins as 2008. The president also carried nearby Ottowa and Wood Counties (albeit by a slimmer margin than '08), despite Bush having won both in 2000 and 2004.

Even before voters finished casting ballots in House races across the country, the Republican leadership in the chamber began girding for a major battle over taxes and spending in the weeks after the election.

Confident that Republicans would retain their majority in the House, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told POLITICO that GOP lawmakers would reject any new taxes on households in the highest income tax bracket.

"We’re not raising taxes on small-business people," Boehner said. "Our majority is going to get re-elected ... We’ll have as much of a mandate as he will — if that happens — to not raise taxes."

Al Behrman / AP

Speaker John Boehner talks with reporters outside Ronald Reagan Lodge after voting, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, in West Chester, Ohio.

Consider Boehner's comments the first public salvo in a coming battle over how to best address the so-called "fiscal cliff," the mixture of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect at the beginning of 2013.

Recommended: First Thoughts: Decision Day

The fiscal cliff involves the expiration of the 2001 Bush tax cuts for all tax brackets and a two-year payroll tax cut, both of which are scheduled to sunset at the end of this year, barring action by Congress. Also set to take effect are the automatic spending cuts set forth in the 2011 debt ceiling deal, which were designed to be so distasteful that lawmakers would reach a compromise on how to best address mounting U.S. debt.

A standoff between the Obama administration, a Democratic Senate and a conservative Republican House of Representatives yielded no deal, leaving the fiscal cliff in its stead. Economists have warned that, if nothing happens to change those deadlines, any economic recovery would be imperiled. Moreover, the cuts fall heavily upon the defense budget, a cut which military leaders have warned could endanger American security.

This gridlock might dissipate if voters elect Romney as president on Tuesday. But if Obama wins a second term and the Senate stays in Democratic hands, the stalemate that helped produce so much disillusionment and nastiness this election could rear its head again in the coming weeks.

"You have to do something, and the best way to do it is by growing the economy," California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republicans' whip in the House, said Tuesday on MSNBC. "Now, we are going to have a fiscal cliff between now and the end of the year -- from the debt limit to the looming tax increases to sequestration. But all those ideas have been passed by the House to solve those. It's the Senate that has not acted."

That rhetoric might sound familiar to any reader who has tracked the incessant bickering between the Obama administration and Congress over the past two years.

But amid the bluster that has begun to emerge from Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama's team seemed more upbeat.

"This election, when the president's re-elected, should break this fever of Washington gridlock," Obama adviser Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary, said on MSNBC. "It's time that Republicans come to the table and understand that we've got to get something done on the big pressing issues of our time."

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?”

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

Hurricane Sandy is barreling toward the East Coast and could deliver the presidential campaign an unpredictable, but impactful, October surprise.

It remains too early to determine precisely where Sandy will make landfall or just how severe the storm might be, but the projections for its path have it aimed toward the mid-Atlantic region, likely impacting hotly-contested battleground states.

Sandy was briefly downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm by the NHC early Saturday, but it returned to hurricane strength within a few hours. 

Warnings as Sandy heads north 

Extensive damage, power outages, and the resulting news coverage could push the election into the background, at least in that region, and could wreak havoc on campaign plans for the final week of the race between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Travel schedules, television advertising buys, and voter outreach could all be impacted … and in some cases, already have been.

A Romney official said Friday that the campaign is keeping a very close eye on the storm and had already decided to cancel a planned rally on Sunday night in Virginia Beach. Vice President Joe Biden also cancelled a Virginia Beach event on Saturday, and a rally for First Lady Michelle Obama planned for Tuesday at the University of New Hampshire in Durham was also canceled, officials said Friday.

Said the Obama campaign of the change in the vice president's schedule, "This ... is being taken out of an abundance of caution to ensure that all local law enforcement and emergency management resources can stay focused on ensuring the safety of people who might be impacted by the storm." 

Slideshow: Sandy barrels through the Caribbean

After strong winds and heavy rain washed out bridges and damaged homes in multiple countries, the hurricane looks toward the northeastern U.S.

Launch slideshow

It isn't yet clear whether Sandy will affect Obama’s scheduled events with former president Bill Clinton in Florida and Virginia on Monday.

Since March, the two presidential campaigns and outside groups have invested $144 million in radio and TV ads in Virginia, with $27 million spent just in the past two weeks. Virginia ranks third in the amount of presidential campaign advertising, after Ohio and Florida.

If local TV stations in Virginia interrupt their regularly scheduled programming in order to broadcast bulletins and live coverage of the storm’s impact, then a campaign ad which had been booked for a specific time on a specific station would not air.

The station would refund the money paid for the ad, but at this point in the election season, campaigns don’t want their money back -- they want their ads to run. 

RELATED: Ad spending on presidential race surpasses $900 million

Of course, even if stations do run those already-booked campaign ads, thousands of Virginia homes might be without power … and millions of dollars in ad buys could be still wasted.

After the intense “derecho” storm swept through the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region with 70-mile-per-hour winds on June 29, electricity for millions of customers was effectively knocked out.

In some areas around Washington, D.C., power was out for a week. And outages in Virginia due to Sandy could conceivably last into Election Day itself.

Voting requires polling locations which have the lights on and aren't under water, so this storm also raises the question of how election officials are preparing to ensure that balloting isn’t disrupted on Election Day.

According to Virginia State Board of Elections spokeswoman Nikki Sheridan, the board has been coordinating with the state Department of Emergency Management, the Virginia State Police, the state Department of Transportation, major utility companies, and the 134 voting registrars who administer the election across the state “to monitor the weather situation and, if necessary … act accordingly.”  

The board has told local election officials that “unless conditions render the voting process unsafe” for employees and voters, registrars should keep their offices “open and to continue the in-person voting process” already underway in the state. 

The final decision whether to close a general registrar’s office “will be made by local authorities or first responders after consultation with your office and electoral board,” the board said.

RELATED: Focusing on Ohio and Colorado

In a press conference Friday afternoon, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Romney supporter, said, “There are obviously concerns about making sure we’re ready for Election Day which will only be a week after the departure of this storm.”

He said that the president of Dominion Power, the state’s major power provider, has told him that the utility would add election locations “as a top priority for power restoration in addition to hospitals and schools and so forth, so I think that is prudent as well, but we don’t anticipate adverse election issues at this time.”

He said the electric utility had a “well-thought out set of priorities for what to restore” and “at this point I don’t see anything happening that would interfere with the election.”

He also said “I expect both candidates and both parties to monitor the situation and if they think they’re going to be interfering with first responder operations” to cancel their Virginia campaign events. “They’re not going to get coverage and they’re not going to get people coming out (to events) because they’re not going to stand out in the rain so they’d be smart to make alternative plans.”

Ross Goldstein, deputy administrator of the Maryland Board of Elections, said Friday, “We’re in contact with state emergency management. We’ve given utility companies a list of polling locations so that they know where our needs are.”

He added that “all of our voting equipment has battery backup,” but noted that, obviously, electricity would be needed to keep the lights on at polling locations.

As in Virginia, Maryland voters have the option of early voting, beginning in the state on Saturday, with one-to-five polling places per county.

In a conference call on Friday, elections officials in Maryland and eight other East Coast states conferred with Louisiana Commissioner of Elections Angie Rogers to find out what officials in her state have learned from coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and other subsequent storms.

Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler said Friday that contingency plans must be made for both before and after Election Day.

“Number one, before the storm, secure the (voting) equipment, move it if necessary, get it out of harm’s way,” he said.

“Number two, get good information on where your poll workers are going to be, make sure you have their cell numbers and evacuation plans so you can get in touch with them if you’ve moved a precinct," he said.

"Then after the storm, determine if your locations are still viable and usable and if they’re not, make sure you move and consolidate precincts. We did that here in Louisiana with the big mayoral election after Katrina. As long as you have locations, power and equipment or paper ballots -- you can still have the election and go forward," he added.

Schedler said another tip for elections officials in storm-affected areas: “Make sure you have a good relationship with the National Guard in your state. Here in Louisiana we used the National Guard to set up large tents for ‘mega-sites.’ They provided us generators. And think about public restrooms, you may need to bring in some Portalets (portable toilets) when setting up as site like that. You need to anticipate just like you do in any emergency.”

He also suggested that state officials in Sandy's path urge people to vote early.

NBC News’ Garrett Haake contributed to this report.

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

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

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.