"The bible of American Politics."

For more than 50 years, the Almanac of American Politics has been the gold standard of accessible, nonpartisan information on the US political system.

Highly regarded for its in-depth analysis and comprehensive profiles of every congressional district, state, governor, and member of Congress, The Almanac is the tool you need to better understand the context of the people and perspectives shaping the issues that matter to you.

The Almanac of American Politics is the must have resource for understanding the American political landscape and includes:

About the Authors:

Louis Jacobson, Chief Author of the 2026 edition and chief correspondent for PolitiFact. He previously served as senior author of the 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 editions of the Almanac, as principal contributing writer for the 2004 edition and as a contributing writer for the 2000 edition. He is a regular contributor on state politics to Sabato's Crystal Ball and U.S. News and World Report. Since 2002, Louis has handicapped political races, including races for Congress, governor, state legislature, other state offices, and the electoral college. Louis has served as deputy editor of Roll Call and as the founding editor of its legislative wire service, CongressNow. Earlier, Louis spent more than a decade as a reporter covering Congress, politics and lobbying for National Journal.

Rich Cohen, Co-Author, was Chief Author of The Almanac of American Politics from 2015 to 2024. Rich has written about Congress for National Journal, Politico and Congressional Quarterly. Rich is the author of several books, including Washington at Work: Back Rooms and Clean Air, a case study of the 1990 Clean Air Act, and Rostenkowski: The Pursuit of Power and the End of the Old Politics. Rich co-authored The Partisan Divide, with former Reps. Tom Davis of Virginia and Martin Frost of Texas. In 1990 Rich won the prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for distinguished reporting on Congress.

Charlie Cook, Co-Author and Contributor to The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and a political analyst for the National Journal Group. Charlie has appeared on the ABC World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and the NBC Nightly News, on ABC’s This Week and for over a dozen times since the 1990s on NBC’s Meet the Press. Charlie was a political analyst and consultant over the years for CBS, CNN, and NBC News. In 2010, he 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 was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He currently holds the Kevin P. Reilly, Sr. Chair in Political Communication in the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University.

Michael Barone, Senior Contributing Author, is Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a contributor to Fox News Channel and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics 1972-2016. He is also the author of Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan, The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again, and many other publications in the United States and several other countries. Mr. Barone received the Bradley Prize from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in 2010, the Barbara Olsen Award from The American Spectator in 2006 and the Carey McWilliams Award from the American Political Science Association in 1992.

Louis Peck, Senior Author and Editorial Board member, is politics editor for Bethesda magazine and a co-founder of Maryland Matters, which provides online coverage of politics and government in that state. Since 1978, Louis has been a Washington-based journalist who has written extensively on Congress and national politics. For nearly two decades, he was editor-in-chief of National Journal’s CongressDaily. Earlier, Louis was editor of Campaigns and Elections magazine and a national political correspondent for the Washington bureau of Gannett newspapers, as well as collaborating on two books on campaign finance reform with the late Professor Herbert Alexander of the University of Southern California.

Jessica Taylor, Senior Author and Editorial Board member, is the Senate and Governors Editor for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. For more than 16 years, she has reported on and analyzed congressional and gubernatorial elections. Jessica previously served as a political reporter for NPR for five years. She has been the campaign editor at The Hill and has reported for the NBC News Political Unit, Inside Elections, National Journal, The Hotline and Politico. She has served as an Election Night analyst for CBS and C-SPAN, and has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News and CNN. Jessica was an intern on the 2008 Almanac of American Politics and served as Research Director for the 2010 edition.

Cameron Joseph, Senior Author and Editorial Board member, is a senior Washington reporter for The Christian Science Monitor. He has covered campaigns, Capitol Hill, and the White House for 15 years. He previously worked for VICE News, Talking Points Memo, the New York Daily News, The Hill, and National Journal, and began his career working on the 2010 Almanac of American Politics. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, The Columbia Journalism Review, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Politico Magazine. He is a recipient of the 2023 National Press Foundation Dirksen Award for distinguished reporting of Congress and the 2020 National Press Club award for excellence in political journalism.

Leah Askarinam, Contributing Author, is a political reporter and analyst who most recently worked with the decision desk at the Associated Press during the 2024 election. She had previously written about electoral politics for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times, Inside Elections with Nathan Gonzales, and The Atlantic. She was politics editor at a startup called Grid during the 2022 midterms, editor in chief of National Journal’s Hotline during the 2020 presidential cycle, and a consultant on U.S. House races with the CBS elections team for the 2018 midterms.

Kirk Bado, Contributing Author, runs the Hotline, a twice-daily political newsletter. He also manages the campaign team of reporters, producers, and correspondents at the National Journal, where he previously covered congressional campaigns and redistricting. Prior to the National Journal, Kirk worked at USA Today, Reuters, the Arizona Republic, the Tennessean, and EdNC. Originally from Pittsburgh, Kirk graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Master’s in mass communication after completing his B.S. in politics and public law at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

David Baumann, Contributing Author, is a writer with Ballard Spahr's Consumer Finance Monitor blog. He also is an adjunct instructor at Johns Hopkins University and a contributor to CQ Researcher. Before joining Ballard Spahr, he established and edited the Washington Credit Union Daily website. Before starting Washington Credit Union Daily, he was the Washington correspondent for the Credit Union Times. A veteran Washington reporter, he has spent his career writing and editing for several Washington publications, including CongressDaily, National Journal magazine and Congressional Quarterly Weekly. He was part of a team that won a 2005 National Headliner Award for a special issue of National Journal on “The State of Congress.” He holds a B.A. in political science from The George Washington University and an M.A. in journalism from Indiana University

Sam Brodey, Contributing Author, is a national political reporter at The Boston Globe, covering the campaign trail, Trump’s Washington, and everything in between. He has covered politics since 2014 and has reported from more than a dozen states. Previously, he was a reporter and editor at The Daily Beast—where his coverage of lawmakers' stock trading was recognized by the National Press Club in 2020—and was Washington correspondent for MinnPost, where he twice was awarded the David Lynch Memorial Award for Regional Reporting. A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Sam began his career in journalism as a fellow at Mother Jones.

Nick Field, Contributing Author, is a Decision Desk HQ contributor and correspondent for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. From 2014 to 2017, he was the Managing Editor of PoliticsPA. Among the various outlets that have published his work are WHYY, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, City & State PA, PhillyVoice and LevittownNow. Additionally, his expertise has been cited by NBC News, Vox, KYW Newsradio and WESA. He graduated magna cum laude from American University.

David Hawkings, Contributing Author, was at Congressional Quarterly and its successor, CQ Roll Call, from 1995 to 2018. He was editor in chief of the 2004 edition of “CQ’s Politics in America,” then a competitor to the Almanac of American Politics, and managing editor of CQ Weekly when the magazine won two Dirksen Awards for Distinguished Reporting of Congress. He also was legislative affairs editor, launched a series of video and podcasts, edited a daily email newsletter and wrote a column of reported analysis. From 2018 to 2021 he was founding editor of The Fulcrum, a nonprofit news site focused on issues weakening American democracy. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, Middle East Broadcasting, and many Washington TV and radio stations. He began his career as a reporter for the San Antonio Light and Washington correspondent for Thomson Newspapers. He is now a freelance writer in Philadelphia.

Matt Holt, Contributing Author, works on the election services team at the Associated Press. Prior to that, he was a researcher on CNN's political unit and reported on campaigns and congress for the Messenger. Before that, he covered the 2020 presidential race and 2022 Senate races for National Journal. His reporting and analysis have been regularly featured on SiriusXM radio. He started his journalism career as a news assistant at CNN and graduated from American University.

Abby Livingston, Contributing Author, covers Congress for Puck, an online news outlet. Prior to Puck, she spent a long tenure as The Texas Tribune’s first Washington bureau chief. Prior to the Tribune, Abby worked for NBC, CNN, National Journal and Roll Call. At the Tribune, she won the 2017 National Press Club Award for Washington regional reporting and the Society of Professional Journalists' 2018 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington correspondence. Abby grew up in Fort Worth and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Each spring and summer, Abby coaches a team of female Washington reporters who play in the Congressional Women’s Softball Game, a charity softball game that promotes awareness of breast cancer for women under 40.

Adam Mazmanian, Contributing Author, was executive editor at Nextgov/FCW, an online publication covering the intersection of technology and government, from 2021 to 2024. He was executive editor of FCW’s website and print magazine from 2015 to 2021, before the publication was merged with Nextgov. His experience includes stints at National Journal, SmartBrief and New York Press, a now-defunct alternative weekly. He has contributed reviews and articles to the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Newsday, Architect Magazine and elsewhere. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.

Caleb McCullough, Contributing Author, is a political reporter. He has worked as a contributing writer for PolitiFact. He was previously the Des Moines Bureau Chief for Lee Enterprises, covering government and politics in Iowa. Caleb graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in journalism and political science. He was the executive editor of the student newspaper, the Daily Iowan.

Ally Mutnick, Contributing Author, is a congressional reporter for Punchbowl News, focusing on campaigns and the House of Representatives. She joined in 2025 after five years as a reporter for POLITICO, where she wrote on elections and the decennial redistricting process. Previously, she covered down-ballot politics at National Journal Hotline. Her work has appeared in the Texas Tribune, USA Today and the Gannett papers. A graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Ally got her start in political journalism as an intern for NPR's Washington Desk.

Rob Oldham, Research Director and Contributing Author, is an incoming assistant professor of political science at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. He has worked on the last four editions of The Almanac of American Politics in various capacities. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University in 2024 and was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in 2025.

James Pindell, Contributing Author, is a National Political Reporter at The Boston Globe, who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England. He re-joined the Globe in 2015 after a previous stint for the Globe’s Washington Bureau 2006-2008. He has previously worked for the Des Moines Register, Indianapolis Star, and WMUR-TV in New Hampshire. He also co-founded three political media start-ups, two of which he sold. He has been an on-staff political analyst for NBC/MSNBC and WBUR. His work has also appeared in Politico Magazine, The Economist, New York Magazine, Campaigns and Elections Magazine, and New Hampshire Magazine, where he wrote a monthly politics column for 15 years. He is a graduate of Drake University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Nathaniel Rakich, Contributing Author, was a senior elections analyst and senior editor at 538, which provided data-driven coverage of politics and elections until it shut down in 2025. Before joining 538, he wrote about politics for Inside Elections, The New Yorker, POLITICO, Roll Call, The Atlantic, The New Republic and the Boston Globe. In a previous life, he also worked as an editor for Let's Go Travel Guides. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

Seth Richardson, Contributing Author, is a professor at the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He covered the 2024 Ohio and Nevada Senate races for PolitiFact and was the former chief politics writer for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Reno Gazette-Journal in Reno, Nevada. He is a graduate of Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois Springfield.

Marilyn Serafini, Contributing Author, is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. Until January 2025 she was executive director of the Health Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Previously, she led the nonprofit organization Heart Valve Voice US, and co-led the Alliance for Health Policy. Marilyn was an award-winning journalist for more than 25 years, writing about health care, welfare, trade, taxes, and budget policy in Congress and the administration for various news outlets.

Geoffrey Skelley, Contributing Author, was a senior elections analyst at 538, part of ABC News until it shut down in 2025. Geoffrey was with ABC News for almost six years; he previously served as Associate Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan publication on campaigns and elections from the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Geoffrey has a B.A. in History from the University of Virginia and an M.A. in Political Science from James Madison University.

Adam Snoddy, Researcher and Contributing Author, is a high school social studies teacher in southwest Ohio and transitioned to the role of high school principal in 2025. He worked previously on the 2024 edition of The Almanac of American Politics. He is a graduate of Ohio State University and has presented about labor-management practices in public education at the state and national levels.