Good morning. Are you tuning into or tuning out to all those campaign ads? This time of year they can be a noisy blur.

More than 419,000 in-person absentee and mail ballots have been accepted so far in Minnesota's election. That update came Friday from the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office. The total is double where the accepted ballot total stood just a week earlier. More than half of those accepted so far have been cast in person — 241,348 to be exact, compared to 177,841 cast by mail. The accepted ballot total also outpaces absentee ballots cast at this point in the 2022 election cycle. At this point in that midterm election, 282,277 ballots had been accepted. Earlier this month, the state started a new option that allows voters to cast absentee ballots early in-person and enter them into the counting machine at their local polling location and weekend early voting began this week. Early voting runs through Nov. 2. You all know what the next day is!

Alert the kids! It’s six/seven (figure) season. Massive infusions of campaign money are pouring into groups to fuel last-minute canvassing, attack ads or other outreach ahead of an already expensive midterm. Minnesota campaign law requires large donations to be reported within 24 hours at this time of year and there are already some doozies. The Republican-aligned New Fund LLC pulled in a $1.2 contribution from the national GOPAC; BB on the big money coming in via the 24 hour notices. A constellation of GOP accounts run by the same operative has shifted money around in large sums: $1.1 million to Renew Minnesota, which is sending out five-and-six figure allotments to connected groups. Americans for Prosperity’s national headquarters sent in $450,000 to a local account. The DFL Party documented $500,000 in new ad spending toward helping Attorney General Keith Ellison and $100,000 in digital ads put toward Amy Klobuchar’s campaign. Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a DFL-aligned entity running ads in the attorney general race, collected $1.25 million from associated groups within a few days time. The DFL Senate caucus designated $260,000 for the final week of ads to boost vulnerable state Sen. Grant Hauschild in northeastern Minnesota.

Some candidates are finding it tougher to close out races on their own terms, having to answer for party figures that aren’t in good public standing. For Republicans, their association with President Donald Trump is a constant messaging theme for their opponents in ads and speeches. The specter of a presidential visit remains out there in the final week. For Democrats, what they’ve done alongside Gov. Tim Walz is a big critique line for their opponents. Then you have non-elected actors who loom large. Tonight’s visit by internet streamer Hasan Piker, who has been a lightning rod, is also splitting Democrats and giving Republicans an opening for guilt-by-association attacks. Peter Cox runs down the difficulty of staying out of someone else’s shadow.

Abortion access hasn’t been a dominant midterm campaign issue this year but that doesn’t mean it’s absent from the Minnesota debate. In 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion was a central theme. Groups aiming to maintain abortion access — as well as those seeking to restrict it — aren’t letting the campaign go by without it being discussed. Abortion was a point of contention during the sole televised debate between DFL nominee for governor Amy Klobuchar and GOP nominee Lisa Demuth last week. Klobuchar said she would aim to keep legal protections for reproductive care in place and accused Demuth of wanting a rollback. Demuth countered that a 1995 court case guaranteeing access under the Minnesota Constitution makes the issue “settled law.” But that’s not a universal view. Dana has a deeper look at how the candidates come down on abortion policy.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar cast her ballot on Friday in her first public appearance in Minnesota since federal agents raided her home in Washington two weeks ago. Omar didn’t appear at a planned press conference with Attorney General Keith Ellison outside the Hennepin County Election Center, but did answer a few questions from the media over her shoulder as she was escorted to her car. KARE 11 has video of that. She told reporters she had not spoken to federal authorities or been briefed by them. The public appearance came as more rumors about the Somali-born congresswoman and her legal status in the U.S. swirl in corners of the internet. Omar is a fixture of President Donald Trump’s closing campaign messaging, pillorying her at stop after stop to loud applause from his most ardent backers.

With the midterms a little over a week away, candidates are working to gain the support (and trust) of Native American voters. Native News reporter Chandra Colvin stopped by voter education events in tribal communities to speak to voters about what’s driving them to the polls this year. It wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s that the federal government addressed Native American voting rights — before then, many states restricted tribal communities or denied them a right to a vote. Today, Native Americans are an important voting bloc. In 2020, Native voters in Arizona and Wisconsin closed the margin in Joe Biden’s presidential win, according to High Country News.