This is my rating chart updated to August 1, 2014:
First some detail about the chart.
For every rating there are 4 columns:
- The first for offices with Democratic incumbent.
- The second for the offices open by a Democrat.
- The third for the offices open by a Republican.
- The fouth for the offices with Republican incumbent.
Note: The SafeD and SafeR groups only have the columns for the offices of the opposite party.
In the chart, basically in the group of the statewide elected offices, the races are named by the reference to the state and the first letters of every word:
- LG: Lieutenant Governor.
- SS: Secretary of State.
- AG: Attorney General.
- ST: State Treasurer.
- SA: State Auditor.
- SC: State Comptroller.
- SE: Superintendent of Education (GA and SC)
- SPI: Superintendent of Public Instruction (ID and WY)
- CPL: Commissioner of Public Lands (NM)
- CGL: Commissioner of General Land Office (TX)
- RC3: Railroad Commissioner 3 (TX)
- CSL: Commissioner of State Lands (AR)
Also, there is a color code that talk about the party that hold the office in the cycle. As example in the case of NJ-Sen, it would be first blue (F Lautenberg D), later red (J Chiesa R) and finally blue (C Booker D). Also it talks about the change in the senate majorities of WA and NY thanks to the defection of some Democrats, or about the recent appointment of a Democratic Lieutenant Governor in South Carolina.
Finally, the chart is also used for a fast count of the net gains or loses of the entire cycle. This is why the chart keeps races like VA-Gov, VA-LG and VA-AG (2013).
THE FUNDRAISING SIDE OF THE CYCLE
Looking at the most recent data we see that between all the races with Toss-Up or better (for the Democratic Party) rating, the Democratic candidates are losing in the total fundraising of the cycle in the following races:
NM-CPL: R Powell
MA-Gov + MA-LG: M Coakley, S Grossman and D Berwick
MI-Sen: G Peters
NV-ST: K Wallin
MN-08: R Nolan
WI-AG: J Richards, R Ozanne and S Happ
IL-Gov + IL-LG: P Quinn + P Vallas
NV-LG: L Flores
KS-Gov + KS-LG: P Davis + J Docking
GA-Gov: J Carter
AZ-SS: T Goddard