Trend favors GOP Senate candidates in CA, WA, WI, GA, IA

It’s hit that point in the election cycle where the competitive nature of Congressional races are shifting rapidly. Unfortunately for Democrats, the overwhelming majority of those shifts are in favor of Republicans.

The latest Senate race rating changes by CQ Politics includes five changes — in California, Washington, Wisconsin, Georgia and Iowa — that benefit Republican candidates. And Democrats can’t even catch a break on the sixth change, which moves Florida’s Senate race from Leans Republican to the more competitive Tossup category based solely of the strength of the Independent campaign run by Gov. Charlie Crist .

When Crist announced this spring that he was abandoning the GOP primary to seek the Senate seat as an Independent, Democratic strategists saw real opportunity. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (N.J.) went so far as to call the move a sign of “divided Republican Party cannibalizing itself.”

But in four months as an Independent candidate, Crist hasn’t tried to carve away conservative Republicans and instead focused on reaching out to Democratic voters. Crist has gone out of his way to block legislative priorities championed by state Republicans and has flirted with the idea of caucusing with Democrats if he is elected. On the financial front, Crist has made inroads in state and national Democratic circles as a way to make up for the fundraising avenues that were cut off after his decision to leave the GOP. Those efforts have kept him from being blown out in the money chase. As of early August Crist had raised a total of $12.5 million and had $8 million in cash on hand. Former state Speaker Marco Rubio, who chased Crist out of the GOP primary, had raised $12.8 million and had $4.5 million in the bank.