Charlie Cook

Charlie Cook founded the independent, non-partisan Cook Political Report in 1984, serving as its Editor and Publisher for 37 years, stepping down in 2021. Charlie is a political analyst and writes a weekly column for National Journal and as a contributor to The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

Covering and analyzing U.S. elections and domestic political trends, The New York Times once said it was “a newsletter that both parties regard as authoritative” while CBS News’ Bob Schieffer called it “the bible of the political community.”

Al Hunt in the Wall Street Journal has referred to Cook as “the Picasso of election analysis.” The late David Broder of The Washington Post, long considered “the Dean of the Washington political press corp”, once wrote that Charlie Cook is “perhaps the best non-partisan tracker of Congressional races.”

Charlie has appeared on the ABC World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, the NBC Nightly News, and on ABC’s This Week. Since the 1990’s, he has also appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press over a dozen times. Over the years, Charlie has served as an Election Night analyst for CBS, CNN, and, for 30 years, on the NBC News Election Night Decision Desk in New York.

In 2010, Charlie was the co-recipient of the American Political Science Association’s prestigious Carey McWilliams award to honor “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” In 2013, Charlie served as a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.