Earth-mass planets are expected to have atmospheres and experience thermal tides raised by the host star. These tides transfer energy to the planet that can counter the dissipation from bodily tides. Indeed, even a relatively thin atmosphere can drive the rotation of these planets away from the synchronous state. Here we revisit the dynamical evolution of planets undergoing thermal atmospheric tides. We use a novel approach based on a vectorial formalism, which is frame independent and valid for any configuration of the system, including any eccentricity and obliquity values. We provide the secular equations of motion after averaging over the mean anomaly and the argument of the pericenter, which are suitable to model the long-term spin and orbital evolution of the planet.