David Wasserman

David Wasserman is Senior Editor, U.S. House of Representatives for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, where he is responsible for analyzing U.S. House Races and is recognized as one of the nation’s top election forecasters. Founded in 1984, The Cook Political Report provides analyses of Presidential, U.S. Senate, House and gubernatorial races. The New York Times has called the Report “a newsletter both parties regard as authoritative.”

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com has written: “Wasserman’s knowledge of the nooks and crannies of political geography can make him seem like a local,” and the Los Angeles Times has called David a “whip-smart” and “scrupulously nonpartisan” analyst whose “numbers nerd-dom was foretold at a young age.”

In 2016, David drew praise for his accurate pre-election analysis, including his piece “How Trump Could Win the White House While Losing the Popular Vote,” written two months before Election Day. Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, recently called David “pretty much the only person you need to follow on Election Night.”

David is a contributor to NBC News and his election commentary has been cited in numerous top publications including Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and RealClearPolitics. He has served as an analyst for the NBC News Election Night Decision Desk since 2008, and has appeared on C-SPAN, CNN, Fox News and NPR.

In the spring of 2019, David was named a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, where he led a seminar entitled “Mapping Our Future: Forecasting Elections & Redistricting 2021.” A frequent speaker and guest lecturer, David has shared his insights into the latest political trends with audiences at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, the Dole Institute of Politics, and Georgetown’s Government Affairs Institute.

In 2018, David’s groundbreaking interactive collaboration with FiveThirtyEight, the “Atlas of Redistricting” took top prize for News Data App of the Year at the Global Editors Network’s Data Journalism Awards. An enthusiast for data and maps, David served as a contributing writer for both the 2016 and 2014 editions of the Almanac of American Politics. In 2014, Twitter awarded David “Best of Twitter” honors for his real-time election coverage.

Prior to joining The Cook Political Report in June 2007, David served for three years as House Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a widely respected political analysis newsletter and website founded by Prof. Larry J. Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. In that role, David led the publication to correctly predict Democrats would score a gain of 29 House seats in November 2006.

A native of New Jersey, David holds a B.A. in Government with distinction from the University of Virginia and was awarded the 2006 Emmerich-Wright Outstanding Thesis prize for his study of congressional redistricting standards.