Zach Dorholt knows people are sick of seeing his face.

For weeks now, residents in St. Cloud have been deluged with brightly colored, glossy pieces of mail covered with Dorholt’s mug. Some people have gotten so much already that they’ve called Dorholt up personally to ask him to make it stop. “There are already people angry and people upset about the radio ads and TV ads and the mailers in particular,” said Dorholt, a Democrat running for a state House seat in District 14B. “We get messages from people who say, ‘Take me off your list.’ ”

He can’t. It turns out that most of the mail sent to Dorholt’s friends and neighbors isn’t coming from him; it’s coming from political parties and other outside campaign groups. In fact, Dorholt has only sent out four pieces of political mail about himself so far, modest in comparison to the output of some politicians running for office.

“There’s an entire element that’s out of your control,” Dorholt said, “But you get blamed for all of it.”

There’s a reason for the litany of literature, of course. St. Cloud is one of the most competitive areas in the state when it comes to deciding who will control the Minnesota Legislature. Both St. Cloud-area House Districts, 14A and 14B, have already attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign spending — more than any other in the state — and an open Senate seat in the district is also attracting a lot of attention.

Yet St. Cloud is hardly the only place that’s seen such a conspicuous influx of political cash. Competitive seats from Red Wing to Minnetonka are also seeing gobs of spending, mostly from the parties and outside groups.

Money floods districts

Because all 201 House and Senate seats — but no statewide candidates — are on the ballot this fall, political parties and outside spending groups are focusing all of their fire on the Legislature. And there’s a lot of fire. Outside groups have already spent nearly $5 million on legislative races since Jan. 1, not including money spent on competitive primary contests, according to campaign finance reports released last week.

But not all 201 races are equally competitive. Many outstate seats and races in the urban core are solidly Republican or Democratic and haven’t attracted any outside campaign spending this cycle. But about two dozen districts in the House and Senate popped up on various PAC spending reports, signaling they are more competitive. That includes districts where the voters tend to swing back and forth, like Northfield and St. Cloud, as well as districts where retirements have made the area more competitive, including seats in Red Wing and Minnetonka.

To give you an idea of where outside groups are concentrating their spending, the charts below money spent by groups supporting Republicans and groups supporting Democrats in each of Minnesota’s House and Senate districts. The darker the green of the district, the more money was spent there by outside groups. (Note: MinnPost did not include data that showed spending for or against a candidate in a different district than he or she is running in this year, or for candidates who lost in the August primary.)

Much of that spending is coming from a single group: Alliance for a Better Minnesota. The Democratic-aligned PAC has spent $2 million so far to on radio, television and mailers in nearly every competitive legislative district across the state (see MinnPosts 25 races watch this fall). On the Republican side, Pro Jobs Majority, which is funded mostly by members of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, is the only group that gets close to ABM, spending nearly $500,000 on legislative races to date.

Political parties are also spending big on the legislative races to either defend or regain the majority in the House and Senate. The Democratic-Farmer Labor-Party has already raised and spent more than $4 million this cycle, vastly outpacing the Republican Party of Minnesota and the four legislative caucuses associated with the parties.

Campaign finance reports can help to illuminate a candidate’s strategy, but they can also be misleading. Districts with little spending now could still get a big influx of cash in the final weeks of the election. And sometimes the political parties pour money into districts early that are not core targets in order to force opponents to spread their resources out in more areas.

Cities like St. Cloud were expected to attract plenty of money. Republicans swept the area’s seats in the low-turnout 2014 midterm elections, wins that included Jim Knoblach’s defeat of Dorholt — by less than 100 votes. And in a presidential year like 2016, Democrats hope they can flip the entire district with higher turnout. Knoblach is now chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, a prominent position that’s also attracted more Republican resources in the district.

In other parts of the state, Democrats are going after other prominent Republicans, including House Taxes Chairman Greg Davids in southern Minnesota’s District 28B. The district went for President Barack Obama and DFL U.S. Sen. Al Franken in 2012 and 2014, but campaigns for the state House seat haven’t gotten much attention by the DFL in the past.

House DFL campaign operative Zach Rodvold said they are excited about candidate Thomas Trehus, a young local school board member who went to college at the University of Minnesota and decided to move back and live in the district. But Davids, who is serving his 12th nonconsecutive term in the House, said he’s out campaigning hard and feels good about his chances. “It looks like an act of desperation by them,” he said. “I think we’re in good shape.”

In the Senate, Democrats have also poured money into efforts to knock off Republican Senate Minority Leader David Hann in Eden Prairie’s District 48, hoping the combination of a strong DFL candidate and negative polling for Republican Donald Trump in the suburbs will help.

In Red Wing’s Senate District 21, meanwhile, it’s Republicans who see a pick up opportunity, and have launched a hard campaign against freshman DFL Sen. Matt Schmit. One mailer from Americans for Prosperity, a conservative outside group affiliated with Charles and David Koch, says Schmidt sided with Gov. Mark Dayton and supported the state’s problematic health insurance exchange. Both sides are also spending money in the area’s House District 21A, where Republican Rep. Tim Kelly is retiring, leaving an open seat that’s swung back and forth in national elections.

Several open seats in the Twin Cities suburbs have also attracted plenty of spending. Republicans want to pick up open seats in Minnetonka-Plymouth’s Senate District 44 and Minnetonka’s House District 48A, swing seats where Democratic retirements have made them more of a tossup.

Candidates try to break through

It’s hard for a candidate to compete with the money flooding into their own districts. Outside groups are on pace to spend more than $1 million in some of the most competitive legislative districts around the state, far more than any candidate can raise themselves.

In District 28B, Davids spotted an attack mailer in his district that said he voted to increase pay for legislators, which he did back in 1997. “They are over the top and they are silly,” he said. “That doesn’t play well out here. This is big city liberal special interest money trying to influence a rural election while totally disregarding the needs of the district.”

Dorholt is running his third campaign for the House since 2012, so he’s getting used to the intensity of spending.  Two years ago, there were 72 mailers sent out in his district during the campaign, 12 of those in a single weekend alone. He had handfuls of mail thrown in his face, and his mail carrier yelled at him.

Dorholt can’t do anything about it, but he makes sure voters know he wants to work on campaign finance spending issues at the Legislature. In particular, he wants to pass the Disclose Act, which would ask voters if they want to disclose more outside spending, including so-called “dark money groups,” which don’t have to report unless they use the words “vote for” or “vote against” on a mailer or ad.

“Campaign finance reform is part of my platform, and I’m serious about it,” he said. “The outside spending just adds to the cynicism that is already so intense. That is the biggest frustration for people. They say, ‘I’m sick and tired of the ads so I’m not voting.’ For me, that sucks the most to hear.”