The race for senator in Connecticut is getting hot and heavy... and close!

Republican Linda McMahon is putting devastating footage of Democrat Richard Blumenthal misleadingly referring to his service in Vietnam on the air in a new ad, just hours before the two Connecticut Senate candidates meet for their first debate.

This is the time in the cycle when races start to get tighter.

Blumenthal’s campaign called the spot “another desperate attack from a losing campaign with nothing to say.”

But public polls show that the race has become competitive – thanks in no small part to the fortune spent by McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. The Republican has pumped more than $23 million of her own money into her campaign. Blumenthal leads McMahon by 3 points, 49 percent to 46 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Sept. 21 to 26.