Beginning next month we will periodically be crunching data and rating each of the races for State Legislature in 2017 and 2018 – beginning with this summer’s special elections.

The categories we will be using are:

Safe Republican

Likely Republican

Leans Republican

Toss Up

Leans Democratic

Likely Democratic

Safe Democratic

Democrats are bullish that the current 25-15 deficit the party currently suffers in the Senate can be reduced to 22-18 or even better in November 2018 while on the House side the current 79-41 GOP edge appears unsustainable on the surface when you consider demographic shifts and the success of Democrats at the top-of-the-ticket in many Republican held seats.

We’ll be diving into these races with our first set of ratings sometime next month.