The campaign finance reports released last week show that political action committees large and small have been funneling lots of money into legislative races.

When the 87th Minnesota Legislature convenes in January, it will seat 60 new members - the third-highest total of the past 40 years. Fifty-four of those new faces will be Republicans.

In many cases, DFLers simply got caught in an undertow in districts that are fundamentally split in their political allegiances; in some, like rural Senate District 16, they handed back control of districts no one had expected them to win in the first place; in others, it appears, they failed to take steps to protect incumbents who faced discernible pockets of Republican opposition.

Republicans pummeled DFLers in the suburbs and greater Minnesota on Tuesday night to take control of both chambers of the Legislature for the first time since the modern partisan era started in the early 1970s.

Few political prognosticators believed the Republicans had much chance of winning majorities in both the state House and Senate. But when the electoral smoke cleared early Wednesday morning that's exactly what had occurred. The GOP established a 37-30 majority in the Senate and a 72-62 hold on the House (barring any changes via mandated recounts).

While the governor's race may be the marquee feature in this year's campaign season, the large number of swing districts in play at the Minnesota Legislature are the object of lower-profile but no less intense campaign spending machinations by a number of groups.

DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton met with about 20 DFL House caucus members at the Minneapolis Club just before Labor Day weekend. Many in the group, which included a number of House DFL rank-and-file supporters of vanquished DFL endorsee Margaret Anderson Kelliher, had yet to sit down with their party's standard-bearer, and treated the event like a meet-and-greet.

Voters will go to the polls in November to decide the balance of power at the state Capitol. GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the state ...

After the dust settled from the 2004 elections, DFLers and Republicans looked with astonishment at Rochester. GOP incumbents in both District 30 House seats lost, ...