Good morning. The calm after the storm is almost here. At least that’s the hope.

A finish line is a good thing and you can almost sense the relief of political candidates as they near it. Yes, they are still working up to rile up voters with Election Day almost here. But there is a knowing feeling that the cake, as they say, is largely baked. Competing bus tours and organized door knocks are aimed at driving out those who might still be on the fence about voting, much less about who they’d vote for. Minnesota’s midterms have been expensive and caustic. The final weekend of campaigning was a final opportunity to hit the themes you’ve been hearing about for months, if not years. Dana Ferguson and Peter Cox have our roundup. 

Don’t be surprised if the early vote total in-person and by mail tops 1 million. We got fresh data Friday from the Secretary of State’s Office. It showed the old midterm records are well in the rearview mirror. About 729,000 ballots had already been marked “accepted,” and those await counting. MPR reporters Winter Keefer and Matt Mikus caught up with people casting ballots over the weekend , with long lines in some places.  A lot of the time those votes that came early would have come in at some point anyway, but it’s also a sign of voter enthusiasm in a midterm that usually won’t rival presidential year turnout. Regular polling places are open statewide from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. tomorrow.

The ads are in their final rotations and the mailers should be done by Tuesday, although sometimes those lag. By early next year — thanks to reporting deadlines that won’t hit for awhile — we’ll be able to tally the many, many millions dumped into trying to affect your votes. We saw a late burst of money in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District between Republican Rep. Brad Finstad and DFL challenger Jake Johnson. The U.S. Senate race between Democratic nominee Peggy Flanagan and Republican Michele Tafoya also got a bump from groups cheering on one or the other. Because of a pricey primary, the total outside spending in that race is already above $27 million. Between the August primary and last Friday, the total outside money topped $7.7 million. That compares with a $9.7 million tally by partisan groups in the Finstad-Johnson race.

One notable set of mailers that hit in the final week came from a group called “Our Heritage Matters.” The outside spending group blasted out one questioning Michele Tafoya’s conservative credentials and urging a vote for Libertarian Party nominee Rebecca Whiting. The group put more than $245,000 into those mailers and more than $325,000 into all of its communications. Our Heritage Matters’ donors aren’t known because the group wasn’t formed until Oct. 15 — after the last deadline for regular disclosure forms. It was registered by a Utah-based consultant and has also been active in Iowa’s competitive U.S. Senate race as well as other key states. There’s another group going by Stand Your Ground that sent mail pieces critical of Tafoya’s openness to gun safety laws. The tally on those might not be known for some time — or ever — because that group doesn’t file with federal campaign regulators and is instead organized under a different IRS code.