By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was eager Tuesday to talk about its recruiting successes for Republican-held and open-seat Senate races.

“We had obviously a top tier for recruiting and we’ve achieved just about all of it,” saidChairman Robert Menendez .

But he conceded that Democrats have encountered “challenging” conditions in Arizona, Georgia and South Dakota — which feature re-election bids by GOP incumbents John McCain , Johnny Isakson and John Thune — as well as the open-seat Kansas race.

Menendez, D-N.J., touted a fruitful recruiting summer despite what he called “a lot of negative chatter nationally.”

“We got the number one candidate we wanted in Louisiana to run, Congressman Charlie Melancon ,” Menendez said at a briefing for reporters.

He called Melancon “perfectly situated to run against Sen. [David] Vitter,” the freshman Republican who is trying to outrun a 2007 prostitution scandal.

Menendez also highlighted the open-seat race in Ohio, where both Democratic candidates, — Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner — are out-polling GOP favorite Rob Portman.

And, he said, “even” Rasmussen Reports, a polling firm with Republican ties, shows that Missouri Democratic candidate Robin Carnahan “is tied with Roy Blunt ,” the Republican congressman who is the party’s preferred pick for the seat held by retiring Sen. Christopher S. Bond .

The glaring recruiting question for Democrats is in North Carolina, where freshman Republican Richard M. Burr looks very vulnerable.

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Durham attorney Kenneth Lewis have already jumped into the Democratic race, but the national party is pushing for seven-term Rep. Bob Etheridge to join the field.

He also expressed optimism about Democrats’ prospects in traditionally unfriendly turf.

“I never thought I’d have a potentially competitive race in Texas but I think we are on the road to,” he said of the pending special election for Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison ’s seat.

Hutchison is planning on leaving the Senate early to run for governor in 2010, creating an opening for Democrats and their leading candidate, Houston Mayor Bill White.