Here's a quick hit on some of the most competitive Senate races in the country:

New Jersey: Kathy Kiely of USA Today looks at the Hispanic angle in the New Jersey Senate race. Republican Tom Kean currently leads by 2.3% in the RCP Average over Bob Menendez. UPDATE: Bad news for Menendez this morning: WNBC reports the U.S. Attorney's office has launched a federal probe into Menedez's financial dealings with a non-profit agency he's been closely associated with over the years.

Washington: The Seattle Times reports Maria Cantwell has $5.1 million cash on hand heading into the final sixty days, nearly a 2-to-1 advantage over Mike McGavick. McGavick stumbled recently with his with his bungled confession, but this morning the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on ethical questions facing the Cantwell campaign.

As I wrote the other day, the next batch of polls is going to tell the tale in this race. Right now, based on the polls taken in the last two weeks of August, Cantwell holds a solid single-digit lead.

Connecticut: Ned Lamont has himself wrapped up deep in the Clinton drama. While he's currently pondering Hillary's offer to campaign for him, Lamont took the opportunity yesterday to slam Lieberman's 1998 public condemnation of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Lamont said he shared the moral outrage over Clinton's affair, but accused Lieberman of using it as a PR stunt for himself and turning it into a "media spectacle."

The Lieberman camp recently released a poll showing Joe with a 16-point lead over Lamont. The latest independent public polling shows the race much closer than that, with Lieberman holding a 5.3% advantage over Lamont in the RCP Average.

Maryland: With a heated primary coming to a close next Tuesday, the Baltimore Sun reports that Ben Cardin took a pounding yesterday from his rivals in a radio debate. The polls are all over the place in this race: a SUSA survey released last week showed Mfume up 4, and a Gonzales Research poll taken the week before had Cardin up 13. Meanwhile, Michael Steele waits patiently for a challenger. This week the Steele camp unveiled a fantastic new television spot aimed at building support within Maryland's large African-American community.

Michigan: President Bush will be in Michigan at a fundraiser for Republican Mike Bouchard. The Detroit Free Press calls Bouchard "an emerging threat" to Stabenow, and the Detroit News looks at Bouchard's latest commercial stressing law and order.

This is shaping up as a race to watch, though as I wrote just yesterday, Bouchard is facing an uphill battle. Sixty days out his opponent leads by 10.8% in the RCP Average and has more than $4 milion in the bank (as of the last filing in mid-July).

Virginia: Democrat James Webb is going up with his first ad, which includes a clip of Ronald Reagan praising him in a 1985 speech. We are due for some new polls in this race: the last two surveys taken in late August showed the race tightening considerably in the wake of Allen's widely publicized "macaca" gaffe. We'll know soon whether those remarks were merely a bump in the road or something more serious.

Missouri: Good news and bad news for Democrat Claire McCaskill. The good? Bubba is coming to town tomorrow. He'll raise more than a million for her campaign, not to mention her media profile for a news cycle or two. The bad? McCaskill is getting ripped by Republicans for making the following remark yesterday: "George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black."

This attack, which Senate Majority Leader Frist called "unconscionable," may not hurt her in St. Louis, but it's bound to turn off some independent and crossover voters in the rural parts of the state where this race is probably going to be won or lost. Right now the polls have this race a dead heat: Talent is leading by a mere 1.5% in the latest RCP Average. Any mistakes by either candidate coming down the strech could end up being fatal.