Steve Pearce eked out his June primary win with very little money left in the bank -- which raises the question of how extensively he's willing and able to self-fund his campaign this fall. He certainly has to do something soon to start chipping away at Tom Udall's money and polling leads.

Mark Udall and his allies have been spending money hand-over-fist, doing their best to define this race before Bob Schaffer has a chance to respond in any substantive way. Schaffer's best strategy at this point might be the "Rocky III" defense: just let yourself get pummeled, hope your opponents waste their best shots early on, and husband your resources for a few well-placed shots of your own at the very end.

This race is still as tough to handicap as ever, but it's worth noting that it'll be the first one in 30 years in which a candidate need not reach 50 percent on Election Day in order to win. Can we assume that the Libertarian and two independent candidates marginally hurt John Kennedy a bit more than Mary Landrieu?

Like Oregon, it's a state in which the DSCC will probably have to play heavily simply to even out the cash disparity between their candidate and the GOP incumbent. Republicans can only hope that the lesson of MS-01 is not merely that the GOP brand is hurting even in the South, but also that outside groups have only limited sway down there.

For whatever reason (possibly the early TV ads), Dole now seems to have a bit of breathing room in the polls in what was briefly a statistically tied race. Nevertheless, she's still hovering around 50 percent, and the DSCC seems likely to throw some more money against her. Another factor that could affect the race might be the amount of money Obama ends up spending here.