With a week to go before the elections, independent groups, most of them with sharp partisan leanings, have spent $257.7 million to influence political campaigns, nearly quadrupling such interest groups' total spending in the last midterm election, according to a Washington watchdog group.

In 2006, the last nonpresidential congressional election year, the groups spent a total of $68.8 million for the election, according to information from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the data.

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