“Cook Political Report shifts key Senate races toward Democrats”, 23 September 2026 (Photo via Washington Examiner — the original report)
As it ran on the front
The Cook Political Report does one job: it counts. It doesn't spin, doesn't stump, doesn't attend fundraisers. It looks at polling and money and candidate quality and moves a needle from "likely" to "lean" to "toss-up," and it has spent September moving that needle almost entirely one direction.
On September 15th, the needle moved toward Republicans — New Hampshire's Senate race, downgraded from "leans Democrat" to toss-up, because a former senator named John Sununu had gained momentum in the polling. That was the last time all month the needle moved that way.…
…(cont) Two days later, September 17th, Alaska's governor's race went from "leans Republican" to toss-up, because new AARP polling had a Democratic state representative, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, at 40 percent against the conservative businesswoman challenging him. On September 23rd, Kansas and South Carolina's Senate races shifted toward Democrats; the same day, a second wire had the handicapper moving Georgia's Senate race too, citing "a very blue environment forming" nationally. By Friday the 25th, the report moved 15 more House races toward Democrats and said it was now almost impossible for Republicans to hold the chamber.
Four separate shifts in eleven days, and one direction dominates them. A ratings agency with no incentive to make anyone feel a certain way keeps recalculating the same number, and the number keeps landing on the same party.
Then, on the 26th — the morning after the fifteen-seat shift — the New York Post ran its own roundup of conservative commentary, and buried in it was a columnist, writing under the byline Joe Klein at an outlet called Sanity Clause, conceding that Trump "certainly deserves a shellacking" because his presidency "combines the unthinkable with the unnecessary with the unhinged." The Post didn't run that line as an attack from across the aisle. It ran it as commentary from their own side, describing their own president, the week after the data had already confirmed it.
Here's the part that should bother you at the bar and not just at the news desk: nobody paid Cook Political Report to say this. Nobody paid the columnist either. One outfit counts seats for a living; the other counts adjectives for a living; they never coordinated, and they arrived at the same conclusion a day apart. When your own commentary can't find you a positive message and the nonpartisan scorekeeper can't find you a seat, you have stopped looking at spin. You are looking at a single receipt with two independent signatures on it, dated one day apart, saying the exact same thing.
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“They keep telling you it's too close to call, but the only ones losing sleep over that are the guys grading their own paper. When the scorekeeper and the columnist land on the same number without ever talking to each other, that's the ground actually moving under the fundraising letters. Watch your own district — the fifteen House seats that just flipped ratings are the fifteen places where somebody's kid still needs a school that works and a paycheck that covers rent.”
“Look, ratings shift, ratings un-shift, that's literally what a handicapper does for a living — ask New Hampshire, that one moved our way. Well, that was two weeks ago, that's ancient history by September. And the columnist — that's one guy's opinion at some outlet nobody's heard of, that's not the party talking, did I say "the party," I meant — that's not us.”
Election forecaster Cook Political Report moved the Georgia, Kansas, and South Carolina Senate races in favor of Democrats on Wednesday, pointing to what it called a “very blue environment forming” nationally. “We have entered the most consequential part of the cycle, and it’s now incumbent on Republicans to prove they can withstand the…
“Trump certainly deserves a shellacking — his presidency combines the unthinkable with the unnecessary with the unhinged,” growls Joe Klein at Sanity Clause.
Nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report shifted Alaska's gubernatorial race to a toss-up on Thursday after previously leaning Republican. Jessica Taylor, the handicapper's Senate and governors editor, reported that new AARP polling found Democratic former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins had 40 percent of respondents'…
The Cook Political Report shifted 15 House seat ratings toward Democrats on Friday and said it was almost impossible for Republicans to retain control of the House of Representatives. VoteHub head of data science Zach Donnini joins to discuss.
The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report on Wednesday shifted the Senate races in Kansas and South Carolina toward Democrats, with just more than a month before the November midterm elections. Kansas shifted from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican" for Sen. Roger Marshall's (R-Kan.) race to keep his seat against…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.
