The National Republican Congressional Committee will announce Tuesday that nine challenger and open-seat candidates have impressed the committee enough with their early efforts to be bumped up to the next rung of the recently retooled “Young Guns” campaign program.

Young Guns is a fundraising and infrastructure system that ranks candidates on three tiers: “On the Radar,” “Contender” and “Young Guns.” No candidate has yet achieved the program’s highest ranking, but as of Tuesday nine GOP recruits will definitely be considered Contenders.

They are Montgomery City Councilwoman Martha Roby in Alabama’s 2nd District, state Rep. Cory Gardner in Colorado’s 4th district, former state Rep. Dennis Ross in Florida’s 12th District, Marine Corps veteran Vaughn Ward in Idaho’s 1st District, state Sen. Andy Harris in Maryland’s 1st District, Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta in New Hampshire’s 1st District, former Rep. Steve Pearce in New Mexico’s 2nd District, former Rep. Steve Chabot in Ohio’s 1st District and former state Sen. Steve Stivers in Ohio’s 15th District.

“The early progress of these candidates is a testament to the Young Guns program and a sign of the changing political environment that Democrats will face next year,” NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas said on Monday.

In a sign that the NRCC intends to continue to expand the Republican playing field in 2010, Sessions is also set to name 32 other challenger and open-seat candidates to “On the Radar” status Tuesday.

All of those candidates whom Sessions will name to Contender status are coming off successful fundraising quarters in which each raised more than $100,000 from June 1 to Sept. 30.

With $508,000 in receipts, Pearce led the group. He outraised freshman Democratic Rep. Harry Teague by about $255,000 despite a very respectable fundraising third quarter by the incumbent.

But Democrats said they intend to keep the NRCC from concentrating its efforts on open-seat and challenger races in 2010 by forcing Republicans to play defense next year.

“After House Democrats’ big wins over the past two cycles — 54 seats in some of the reddest districts in the country — our best defense this cycle is a strong offense,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Ryan Rudominer said on Monday. “After a successful summer recruiting, we have met our recruiting goal of putting 20 Republican seats in play. This success will force the Republicans to spread their resources across a large playing field.”

Rudominer pointed to the open-seat races in Illinois’ 10th District, Pennsylvania’s 6th and Delaware’s at-large seat as well as Louisiana’s 2nd District as Democrats’ top pickup opportunities this cycle.

The Young Guns program was originally created by House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia and fellow GOP Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin during the 2008 cycle before the NRCC adopted it as one of its marquee candidate-development tools earlier this year.

Candidates are named to the Young Guns program by meeting individualized benchmarks, which include developing grass-roots support, fundraising and creating a media plan. Those benchmarks become higher and more stringent with each level of the program.

“The goal is to make good candidates great,” McCarthy said Monday. “But also we send a message to the outside: ‘Here’s candidates that are emerging’ ” and have caught the committee’s eye.