By Jay Newton-Small "You are people who can't be bought," Alison Lundergan Grimes said The Kentucky Democrat who is giving Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell the toughest reelection race of his career teared up during a speech Sunday just two days before the election. "You are the messengers that Mitch McConnell can't buy. He can buy the airwaves," Grimes said, choking up, her eyes welling with tears, "but not the hearts and minds of each and every one of you… You know that after 30 years of Mitch McConnell we can do better. And I tell you, this strong independent Kentucky woman, I've got kick still in me." Grimes, 35, who is Kentucky's secretary of state, was talking about McConnell loaning his campaign $1.8 million on Oct. 24, on top of the whopping $53 million he's already raised to beat Grimes. In the emotional speech before a largely union crowd, Grimes blasted McConnell, 72, for being in the pocket of "millionaires and billionaires," and said she would "work for the people of Kentucky" if elected. Grimes had campaigned Saturday with Hillary Clinton, who she said is one of her lifelong political idols. Clinton famously won the New Hampshire presidential primary in 2008 after welling up emotionally at a campaign event. For Clinton at the time it was a pivotal, if inadvertant, event. Prior to New Hampshire, she'd run on an almost wooden campaign of toughness, trying to show she could be commander-in-chief, almost burying the historic nature of her campaign. But rather than painting her as weak, Clinton's tears had a humanizing effect. After her New Hampshire victory, largely on the back of female voters, she sought to appeal to women more, but the push came too little too late to save her candidacy (a mistake many say she'll rectify in 2016). Grimes, by contrast, has spent her entire campaign focused on turning out women, emphasizing equal pay, childcare and McConnell's votes against the Violence Against Women's Act. And running for Senate isn't the same as running for an executive office, where voters question a candidate's ability to be a commander-in-chief. But Grimes' frustration on Sunday was genuine and similar to Clinton's in its sense of almost hopeless exasperation: the raw honesty looking a potential hard-taught close loss in its face. Grimes was down in an NBC/Marist poll out Sunday, 41% to McConnell's 50%, though her campaign says its internal polls show a race still evenly split. "We remain confident in the accuracy of our own polling, which for months has shown this race a dead heat," says Charly Norton, Grimes' spokeswoman. Mitch McConnell's panicked $2-million check to himself and his sleazy, illegal voter suppression tactics suggest he sees the same." On Sunday, Grimes also grew visibly angry waving a mailer sent out by the Kentucky Republican Party that she said amounted to voter suppression. Grimes' campaign is suing the party over the mailer, which warns Democrats that if they vote on Tuesday they could be committing an "election violation." "He thinks that another six years on top of the 30 he's already had constitutes change, well we don't buy that," Grimes said. "He thinks that we can't live without his seniority, well has he seen that we're at the bottom of every national indicator that's out there? Henderson, are ya'll better off after having Mitch McConnell for the last 30 years?" "No!" roared the crowd of more than 150. McConnell is poised to be Senate Majority Leader if Republicans recapture the upper chamber.

By Adam Beam U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren brought her brand of populist politics back to Kentucky on Tuesday to campaign for Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes one week before voters go to the polls in one of the country's most closely watched Senate races. Warren, making her second trip to Kentucky this election season, jumped between full throated attack mode against Republican policies and soft stories of how her janitor father helped her family "make it into a middle class that America's labor unions built." "There is no better fighter for America's middle class, for America's working people, than Alison Lundergan Grimes," Warren said, citing Grimes' support of raising the minimum wage. "Alison is willing to fight back and better yet, Alison is willing to fight forward." The rally at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers attracted steel workers, teamsters, firefighters and communication workers who sipped beer in plastic cups and listened to Warren, the first in a lineup of political stars visiting Kentucky in the final week of the contentious campaign. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will campaign with Sen. Mitch McConnell on Wednesday, and Hillary Rodham Clinton will stump for Grimes on Saturday. Stephen Piercey, a 32-year-old UPS worker and a steward in the Teamsters union, said he supports Grimes because she opposes right to work legislation that would allow companies to hire nonunion workers, which he said would weaken the labor union's ability to bargain for its members. "We've got outstanding health care, I got a pension I'll have one day, I make good money on the hour," he said. "All of those things combined give me a quality of life I wouldn't be able to have if I didn't have a union." McConnell, the Senate minority leader, made his pitch for Kentucky's working families in Campbellsville on Tuesday, where he campaigned with country music singer Lee Greenwood at a company that makes clothes for the military. In 2012, Federal Prison Industries, a government-owned corporation that provides jobs to federal prison inmates, sought to bid on the military contract that officials at Campbellsville Apparel said would have threatened their business. After pressure from McConnell, Federal Prison Industries decided not to bid on the contract. "He's kept our jobs open," said Beverly Brown, 44, who has worked at Campbellsville Apparel for 15 years. "He's kind of been out there helping us as working people." McConnell briefly mentioned his efforts to help the company, but spent most of his time telling the crowd about how, despite his 30 years in the Senate, he is the candidate of change in this race while Grimes is just "a new face to vote for the president's agenda." "Change is not about how new you are, change is about where you want to go and I want to change America," McConnell said. Grimes, who has refused to say whether she voted for President Barack Obama, has said she would not answer to the president if elected. Tuesday, she called Kentucky's Senate election "a revolution," asking for union workers to help "take back Washington." "It is labor that has lifted millions out of poverty and it is labor that will help us grow the middle class," Grimes said.

By Rae Hodge With only days left until the Nov. 4 election, Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes charged into the Copper & Kings Distillery on Tuesday evening with finance reform firebrand Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to shout back at the 400 or so supporters chanting her name. Tuesday night's campaign stop marks the second time this year Warren has appeared beside Grimes in Louisville, stirring supporters on student loan reform with her well-known brand of middle-class populism. Student loan reform, which often disproportionately effects young women, has been a platform centerpiece throughout Grimes' campaign, garnering the attention of college-aged political groups--and the support of stalwarts like Warren. "Let's just remember the basic facts here," said Warren. "We've got 40 million people in this country who are dealing with student loan debt, $1.2 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. It is dragging down our economy. Young people are not able to buy homes. They are not able to buy cars. They are not able to start small businesses." Grimes has proposed reforms that mimic much of what was available in previous Warren legislation, including fully funding Pell Grants, allowing students to obtain federally subsidized Stafford loans at the same rates granted to banks, and refinancing student loans. During her speech, Warren struck hard at Grimes' opponent, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, noting his opposition to her June proposal which would have allowed students to refinance their loans at current, lower interest rates. "This should be a no-brainer, right? 359,000 Kentuckians would be eligible to refinance their student loan debt if we could pass this. So let's be clear: Where does this bill stand? Well, every single Democrat in the United States Senate supported this bill," she said. Warren railed against the gender wage gap, taking McConnell to task on his several votes against legislation guaranteeing pay equity, and calling on Kentuckians to send a woman to the Senate. If elected, Grimes would be Kentucky's first female U.S. senator. Today, there are 20 women in the Senate, the largest number ever, 16 of which are Democrats. Grimes isn't the only high-profile woman candidate either. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that the Grimes McConnell race ranks fourth among the top 10 most expensive Senate races in the country right now. And the top three races above Kentucky's-- in North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa --also feature women candidates. Nationwide, 14 Senate races involve women--nine of the women are estimated to win seats while polls favor male opponents for the other five races. In the nine races where women are predicted to win, five are facing male incumbents, and four are holding onto their seats by the seats of their pantsuits. Grimes, who has weathered several gendered attacks from McConnell throughout her campaign, continues to rely on the pivotal, and widely-female, Democratic voter turnout for next week. She closed her speech Tuesday night by driving home her point: "We can move one another and, yes, we will move Mitch McConnell right out of Washington," shouted Grimes. "You give us your time. You give us your time and your talents and you'll get this Kentucky filly across the finish line into the winner circle, and we'll put him out to pasture."