The six major business-backed spending groups have poured more than $2.6 million worth of independent expenditures into legislative races as of October 22. Campaign finance reports released today show that a national GOP political group has pumped more than half a million dollars this month in the bid to preserve GOP control of the Legislature.

Business-backed PACs continued their fundraising push in the late summer as the focus shifted from contested primaries to November's general election. Most of their spending was dedicated to supporting first-term Republican incumbents in swing districts.

The tightly contested Senate District 33 GOP primary contest between state Rep. Connie Doepke and David Osmek was an expensive affair. Osmek prevailed by just 107 votes in the race to replace retiring Sen. Gen Olson in a solidly GOP district.

Republican Rep. Connie Doepke is under attack from a second conservative independent group in her bid to replace retiring Sen. Gen Olson. Americans for Prosperity Minnesota recently sent out a piece linking Doepke to President Barack Obama and his signature health care legislation in a district that votes overwhelmingly Republican.

In the 2010 election cycle the Freedom Club State PAC spent just over $220,000 on political expenditures. But the conservative independent expenditure group is apparently taking a different tack so far in 2012.

The recent flurry of Freedom Club-sponsored pro-right-to-work direct mail pieces sent to the districts of GOP state senators seen as potential opponents of the controversial ballot initiative were sent from a mail house owned by one of their Senate Republican caucus colleagues, Sen. Chris Gerlach.