Getting close to the end of our exhaustive look at the hot House races, and we're swinging back to the Great Lakes region, where hot races in Wisconsin and Illinois are going to hold our attention through November. The races to learn and love:

Wisconsin 08: In conversations with Republican strategists, most say that former Wisconsin Assembly Speaker John Gard is the candidate who most should have won his race in 2006. Instead, Gard lost to Democrat Steve Kagen. Kagen had a tough first year, but he's raised an impressive amount of money so far. Kagen pulled in $1.07 million through the first quarter and retained $760,000 million for his battle in November. Kagen still owes himself $469,000 from his last race. Gard, running again, raised $555,000 through March and still has $427,000 left. Gard will benefit from a heavy turnout for John McCain, but Kagen pulled out one surprise already and he might just do so again.

Illinois 08: Freshmen Democrats looking for a key to surviving their first re-election bid can take cues from Melissa Bean, who beat a long-time incumbent Phil Crane in 2004 and survived a wealthy self-funder in 2006. This year, she faces another wealthy businessman, Steve Greenberg. Greenberg has already given his own committee close to $100,000, and has raised $522,000, but after taking the whole month of March off, he's down to just $5,000 in the bank, and his campaign manager just quit. Bean has raised $2.22 million so far, and she still has $1.35 million on hand. Bean first won the district as President Bush carried it by twelve points, and with Barack Obama on the ballot this year, Republicans might have to wait two more years to give Bean another strong challenge.

Illinois 10: Republicans lost a huge number of suburban seats in 2006 despite the best efforts of Rep. Mark Kirk, who tried to warn his fellows of the danger they faced. Kirk himself beat a surprisingly strong Democrat by just six points that year, and this time around he will again face marketing executive Dan Seals in November. Kirk has already banked a whopping $2.95 million, through March, and he still has $2.25 million in the bank. Seals had a somewhat competitive primary, but of the $1.42 million he's raised through the First Quarter, he still has $745,000 on hand. Kirk is another paranoid incumbent, so he's not going to be taken by surprise, but this northern Chicago suburb could be in danger anyway.

Illinois 11: Republicans thought they had a good candidate to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Weller, until that candidate proved unable to raise money and was uninterested enough to simply drop out. Now, Republicans have fielded wealthy businessman Martin Ozinga, though he has yet to begin raising money. Ozinga will face State Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson, who has already raised $861,000 and still has $673,000 left in cash. Not only will Ozinga have catching up to do, but national Democrats have already hammered him for his business dealings. If Ozinga doesn't respond by defining himself soon, Democrats will remain strong favorites to pick up this seat based largely southwest of Chicago.

Illinois 14: Former Speaker Dennis Hastert was replaced by Democrat Bill Foster in a special election in early March, and a rematch in November will again pit Foster against Republican Jim Oberweis, a candidate many in his own party blamed for losing the seat. Both candidates spent more than $3 million in their bids, and both have a long way to go to rebuild their war chests. Foster had $262,000 in the bank after March, while Oberweis had $132,000 lying around. In three previous contests, Oberweis has had to largely self-fund, and if donors don't kick in contributions now, he will start writing his own checks again.