President Obama and Mitt Romney are both on pace to raise more than $1 billion with their parties by Election Day, the New York Times reports.

“From the beginning of 2011 through Oct. 17, Mr. Obama and the Democrats raised about $1.06 billion, and Mr. Romney and the Republicans collected $954 million… The overall totals do not include hundreds of millions of dollars being raised and spent by “super PACs” and other outside groups, mostly to benefit Mr. Romney and other Republicans.”

Psychology Today: “If the subject isn’t very important to you or you have other things on your mind, misinformation is more likely to take hold, according to the researchers. They point out that rejecting false information requires more cognitive effort than just taking it in. That is, weighing how plausible a message is, or assessing the reliability of its source, is more difficult, cognitively, than simply accepting that the message is true. In short, it takes more mental work. And if the topic isn’t very important to you or you have other things on your mind, the misinformation is more likely to take hold.”

“Moreover, when you do take the time to evaluate a claim or allegation,
you’re likely to pay attention just to a limited number of features, the
study found. For example: Does the information fit with other things
you already believe? Does it make a coherent story with what you already
know? Does it come from a credible source? And do others believe it?”

Here are the latest polls from the battleground states:

Colorado: Obama 48%, Romney 45% (OnSight Public Affairs)

Colorado: Obama 47%, Romney 46% (Purple Strategies)

Florida: Romney 51%, Obama 46% (Sunshine State News)

Florida: Romney 50%, Obama 48% (Rasmussen)

Iowa: Obama 50%, Romney 46% (Gravis)

Nevada: Obama 50%, Romney 49% (Gravis)

New Hampshire: Obama 49%, Romney 46% (New England College)

North Carolina: Romney 53%, Obama 45% (Gravis)

North Carolina: Romney 48%, Obama 47% (Civitas)

Ohio: Obama 49%, Romney 47% (American Research Group)

Ohio: Obama 46%, Romney 44% (Purple Strategies)

Ohio: Obama 50%, Romney 46% (CNN/ORC)

Virginia: Obama 47%, Romney 47% (Purple Strategies)

Virginia: Obama 48%, Romney 48% (Newsmax/Zogby)

Wisconsin: Obama 49%, Romney 49% (Rasmussen)

You’ll want this for watching Election Night returns: Electionary.

Gallup finds the composition of the electorate for the 2012 presidential election is looking quite similar to what it was in 2008 as well as 2004.

As a result, the election’s outcome “may hinge more on how groups vote rather than to what extent they will vote. And most groups are currently less likely to support Obama now than they were in 2008. However, Obama’s seven-point margin of victory in the 2008 election leaves him considerable breathing room to lose electoral support yet still win the election.”

“Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up.”

— President Obama, in an interview with Rolling Stone.

Nate Cohn: “Obama’s road to victory in Ohio starts with a strong showing among the African American voters that provided Bush with reelection eight years ago. It’s often overlooked just how much Obama gains over Kerry’s performance just by winning an outsized share of African Americans. According to the 2004 exit polls, Bush’s concerted efforts to appeal to African American voters–mainly on cultural issues–held Kerry to just 84 percent of the black vote. African American voters predictably swung decisively toward Obama, offering him 97 percent of the vote on Election Day with an additional point of black turnout.”

“In 2004, Bush won Ohio by 118,000 votes, but Obama’s gains among African American voters are sufficient to erase Kerry’s deficit without any changes in the composition of the electorate.”

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) proposed a Constitutional amendment that would give the winner of the popular vote in the presidential race an additional 29 electoral votes, The Hill reports.

“Swing states would still retain their importance in the Electoral College, but the additional 29 delegates awarded to the popular vote winner would fundamentally alter the focus of the campaigns. Candidates would have to target voters in states they have no chance of winning, as well as in states they have no chance of losing.”

First Read: “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.”

Mitt Romney is placing television ads in Minnesota, “a move that pushes his presidential campaign into a state Democrats have held for more than three decades,” the AP reports.

First Read: “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.”

Nate Cohn: “It’s probably all about Wisconsin with a side benefit of momentum.”

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

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

“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.”

— John Sununu, in an interview with Piers Morgan, on Colin Powell’s endorsement of President Obama.

[Read more…]

Washington Post: “An explosive story about the massive wealth accumulated by the family of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao caused the Chinese government to block the Web site of the New York Times early Friday morning, just days before a sensitive once-in-a-decade transition of power from Wen and others to a new generation of leaders.”

“The article documents assets controlled by Wen’s family worth at least $2.7 billion, a shocking figure even in a country where government corruption is rampant and popular resentment against the elite has increased in recent years. The scandal also complicates the apparent intention of Chinese leaders to tackle corruption as a main issue at the Nov. 8 party congress, a move they have been signaling in the wake of other scandals that had dramatically shaken the party’s core leadership.”

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