Charles Edward Cook Jr. is an American political analyst who specializes in election forecasts and political trends. Cook writes election forecasts and rankings in his own publication, The Cook Political Report, and in other media. He is a political analyst for the National Journal and since 1994 with NBC. Cook writes two columns for National Journal, "The Cook Report" for the main publication and "Off to the Races" for the online National Journal Congress Daily. Since the 1984 US presidential election, Cook has provided election night commentary for various television networks.
Career
Cook graduated in 1972 from Captain Shreve High School in Shreveport and attended Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Cook worked on Capitol Hill for then-Senator J. Bennett Johnston, a Democrat from Shreveport who served from 1972 to 1997. Cook also worked for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Policy Committee. In addition, he worked as a pollster and campaign consultant and on the staff of BUILD-PAC, the political action committee of the trade association, the National Association of Home Builders. In 1984, he founded the newsletter The Cook Political Report, which publishes analyses of the primaries and general elections for federal political offices and state governorships. The Report's predictions are accorded high credibility among journalists and politicians. CBS News' Bob Schieffer called the Cook Political Report "the bible of the political community." The New York Times has called Cook "one of the best political handicappers in the nation" and has said the Cook Political Report is "a newsletter which both parties regard as authoritative." David Broder wrote in The Washington Post that Cook was "perhaps the best non-partisan tracker of Congressional races." In 2006, Cook was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. In 2010, he won the Carey McWilliams award from the American Political Science Association. The award is given annually to honor a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics and carries a prize of $750. In 2013, he served as a Resident Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics.
