The National Republican Congressional Committee has named its first roster of “Young Guns” — essentially, the NRCC sets performance standards, and these ten candidates are performing the best on the trail so far. I decided to check how these young guns are raising cash compared to the . . . er, old knives they’re running against.

Steve Chabot (OH-01): According to OpenSecrets.org, Chabot has raised $704,669, while incumbent Democrat Steve Driehaus has raised a little over $869,000.

Tim Griffin (AR-02) has raised $391,762, and with Vic Snyder’s retirement, the Democrats are still sorting out who their most likely candidate is.

Andy Harris (MD-01) has raised $654,914, while Democratic incumbent Frank Kratovil has raised $1.08 million.

Pat Meehan (PA-07) has raised $791,389, while the top Democratic contender in this open-seat race, Bryan Lentz, has raised $515,279. Interestingly, another Republican, Steven D. Welch, has raised $802,118.*

Steve Pearce (NM-02) has raised $821,505 compared to incumbent Democrat Harry Teague’s $1.06 million.

Martha Roby (AL-02) is one of the few top competitors not keeping up in the money race. She has raised $293,277 compared to Bobby Bright’s $752,061.

Dennis Ross (FL-12) has raised $456,008 in this open-seat race; the most any Democratic rival has raised is $176,451, by Lori Edwards.

Steve Stivers (OH-15) has raised $561,416, while Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy has raised $1.09 million.

Vaughn Ward (ID-01) has raised a respectable $341,176, but the Democrat he seeks to defeat, Walt Minnick, is preparing for the fight, having raised $1.1 million.

Allen West (FL-22): The YouTube sensation is doing quite well, raising $1,220,306, with Democrat Ron Klein having $1.4 million.

UPDATE: A reader notes OpenSecrets has it wrong, and I failed to notice:

Steve Welch was originally running in PA-7 before Pat Meehan dropped his bid for Governor and decided to run in the 6th (www.welchforpa.com) . Steve lives right on the border of the two districts and switched his campaign to the 6th, Rep. Jim Gerlach’s district who was also running for Governor before also deciding to run again for his old seat. So, right now Pat is leading candidate in the 7th, and there will a contested primary in the 6th between Welch, Gerlach, State Rep. Curt Schroder, and other minor candidates dropping in and out. Primary is May 18th.