Charlie Cook.

A conversation about American politics.

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I’ve known Charlie Cook for more than four decades. I remember the day he called me to get my take on starting a newsletter about American electoral politics and political trends. I remember thinking that if anyone could pull that off, it was probably Charlie.

Pull it off he did. This from The Bipartisan Policy Center:

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.”

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January 2026 seemed like a good time to call up Charlie and get his preview of the upcoming mid-term elections. There are very few people who are as well-informed on the subject. So I called him. We end up talking about a lot more than the mid-term elections.

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(The News Items Podcast. John Ellis and Charlie Cook. Recorded January 20, 2026. Produced by Dale Eisinger)

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You can find this podcast, and previous News Items podcasts, on most of the major platforms, including Apple, Amazon and Spotify.