ST. PAUL — Minnesota’s campaign for governor was a bargain compared to the spending in the same race four years earlier.

Final figures from the 2014 campaign were published Tuesday. They show Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton spent about $3 million last year toward his re-election. Republican nominee Jeff Johnson clocked in at $2.4 million. Three other Republican hopefuls combined to spend about $2 million.

Still, those figures pale with candidate spending in 2010’s governor race, when the Democratic and Republican nominees spent $7.5 million and a third-party candidate added another $1.3 million. The Democratic primary that year was far more expensive, too.

Even outside group spending also fell. For example, the liberal Alliance for a Better Minnesota group spent $5.7 million on 2010’s governor’s race and dropped that to $3 million last year.