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Vice President Joe Biden urged Iron Range Democrats on Thursday to get out the vote for U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, saying Republicans don't understand the needs of the middle class.

"Get out the vote. We cannot afford to lose this race. It's important," Biden implored the crowd at Hibbing Community College, estimated by the Nolan campaign at over 600.

Nolan, the incumbent, is locked in a tight race with GOP candidate Stewart Mills in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, which was long a traditional Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party stronghold but has become a swing district as redistricting has added more conservative territory near the Twin Cities. The race is one of the country's top five in terms of outside spending.

"This election really is going to be decided at the end of the day about who shows up to vote," Nolan said in his own speech to an audience that included many wearing jackets and hats bearing names of the region's mining and other unions.

Biden spoke mostly about the struggles of the middle class and drew parallels between the lives of the heavily blue-collar audience and growing up near Pennsylvania's mining country. He said the national economy is doing well now in "a macroeconomic sense," saying the stock market and employment rate are up and noting that Minnesota's jobless rate is below the national average.

"But guess what? Ordinary people aren't feeling it," he said. "Ordinary people aren't seeing it."

Biden said little about Mills, a wealthy businessman whose family started the Mills Fleet Farm chain of stores, but criticized Republicans at length as being out of touch. He said he doesn't question the motives of "the tea party guys and Rick's opponents."

"They don't understand where we grew up. They don't understand that the reason we have a middle class in America is because of unions," he said to cheers.

Nolan pointed out that tens of thousands of Democrats in the district stayed home in the 2010 midterm election, when Republican Chip Cravaack ousted longtime Democratic Rep. Jim Oberstar. Nolan retook the seat in 2012, buoyed by the high turnout of a presidential election year and ballot issues that drew Minnesota Democrats.

"Make sure that we've identified those people who didn't show up in 2010," Nolan said. "And all we have to do is get them out to vote, and we will win this election."

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Biden Stumps in North Minnesota for Democrat Nolan

A Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate would be a case of back to the future for the Banking Committee, where Richard Shelby is in line to assume the helm.

Shelby, 80, who was chairman of the panel in the years leading up to the financial crisis when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, would be seizing the gavel again in an environment reshaped by laws that he opposed.

Hed have to focus on issues with bipartisan support, current and former congressional aides say. Those include seeking to eliminate the directors job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and requiring more disclosure by the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Both panels were created over his objections as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

What Shelby wont do, they say, is pull bill after bill from the stack of 23 measures languishing since passing the Republican-run House that would unravel the stricter banking rules. Those would have little chance of passing a closely divided Senate or surviving a veto from President Barack Obama.

Im trying to lower peoples expectations on what is realistically possible, said Joseph Engelhard, a former U.S. Treasury official and congressional staff member. Even if Republicans take the Senate, it will likely just be a one- or two-person majority, and any major reform would have to overcome a veto or filibuster, said Engelhard, now senior vice president at Washingtons Capital Alpha Partners LLC.

During his 28 years in the Senate, including a stint as banking chairman from 2003 to 2007, Shelby of Alabama has taken actions that align with Wall Street such as opposing the Dodd-Frank Act four years ago. And since 2009, securities and investment firms as well as commercial banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) have been among his top contributors, donating a total of $1.4 million.

Yet hes capable of surprises.

Shelby, who served as a Democrat before switching parties in 1994, split with Republicans by resisting the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall provisions that built a firewall between investment and commercial banking. He openly opposed the 2008 Wall Street bailout and has backed an amendment that would shrink the biggest financial firms.

I dont think the banks are getting a steadfast ally but they also are not getting an enemy, said Brandon Barford, a partner at Beacon Policy Advisors, an independent financial policy research firm, and a former aide to Shelby. They are getting someone who, when it fits with his beliefs on that issue, will fight alongside them and oppose them when the opposite is true.

At a September hearing, Shelby questioned why more people at big banks havent been sent to jail for their actions in the run-up to the credit crisis.

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Consumer Unit Born of 2008 Crisis Would Be Shelby Target

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