By Meghan Casserly, Forbes Magazine

The midterm elections are a week away, and this year an overwhelming number of female candidates, commentators and influencers are commanding the headlines, brashly driving the conversation and laboring to deliver who will control the Senate, the House and the future of the country.

The forces that put us in this position come in the form of various political baronesses and info upstarts that make up this year’s inaugural “Power Women of Elections 2010.” A great many of these mighty women appear on The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, including Tea Party queenmaker Sarah Palin, First Lady Michelle Obama and Rachel Maddow, a news anchor with a beef against “extremists” in politics.

Yet the polarizing are, in many ways, those who matter most. Or at least provoke chatter most. Consider Mama Grizzly Sharron Angle, clawing at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s seat from Nevada or Maureen Dowd, who coined the phrase “Mean Girls” of the midterms (talking about Meg Whitman, Christine O’Donnell, Linda McMahon and the like) saying that they have replaced “Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold.”

The Top 25 Most Powerful Women Of The Midterm Elections

To rank this list of powerful women, we looked at both their reach–in terms of constituency and audience size–and buzz–Google ( GOOG – news – people ) searches and Factiva hits. This is not a registry of the next generation of potentates in heels (or sneakers, if you’re Maddow). It is a snapshot of today with a lingering shadow: What will this list look like in a week? A year? Where will this take us in the future?

“This election cycle there are a lot of women in high-profile positions across the country,” notes Kathy Groob, publisher of ElectWomen.com, a blog dedicated to electing women to public office, citing the New Mexico governor’s race between Republican Susana Martinez and Democrat Diane Denish as both high profile and history-making. “No matter what happens, we’ll definitely see the first woman female governor in New Mexico.

Sarah Anzia, a researcher at Stanford University with an expertise in American politics, says that it’s interesting to note the shift in issues when two women compete for a single appointment. “Many of the issues where women traditionally have the most strength–like education or welfare policy–tend to fall to the wayside when two females are running against each other.”

Case in point: the tightly locked California Senate race between incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer and GOPer Fiorina, where the state’s failing economy has taken center stage.

Groob, a former Democratic candidate for the Kentucky Senate, points out that, beyond candidates, the role of women in the coverage of U.S. politics has seen advances this year, pointing to Christiane Amanpour’s Sunday morning news program, This Week, as an example of women breaking barriers in the traditionally male-dominated beat of political reporting.

“Those shows have always been dominated by guys,” she says. “Take Rachel Maddow’s program or her spot on the Meet the Press roundtable. And every Sunday Amanpour has much more gender balance in terms of her guests–and will continue to, so that’s definitely to be considered marked progress.”

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