What are current Cook Political Report ratings for the 2026 House and Senate (2025–2026)
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Executive summary
The Cook Political Report maintains rolling, race-by-race ratings for the 2026 House and Senate cycles using a seven‑point competitiveness scale, and those ratings currently populate Cook’s public ratings pages and are republished by aggregators such as 270toWin; however, the full, race-level lists and narrative writeups are gated for subscribers [1] [2] [3]. Public Cook analyses from 2025–2026 frame the Senate map as tilted toward Republicans with limited opportunities for Democrats and treat all 435 House districts as actively assessed for competitiveness [4] [1].
1. What Cook’s ratings are and how they’re structured
The Cook Political Report uses a seven‑point scale — typically expressed in public materials as categories from “Safe” through “Likely” and “Lean” to “Toss‑Up” — to rate each House and Senate race, and those ratings combine objective measures like partisanship and polling with qualitative reporting and interviews [2] [1]. Cook’s public pages and explanatory materials describe that competitiveness is determined by district or state political makeup, candidate strengths, the political environment, and reporting from campaign professionals — the same methodology cited across Cook’s House and Senate ratings pages [1] [2].
2. Where the current 2026 House ratings stand in public reporting
Cook’s public House‑ratings hub shows that each of the 435 districts is being tracked and judged on that seven‑point scale, with updated maps and charts available on the site; individual race pages and the detailed narratives, however, are subscriber features [1] [5]. Local press summaries of Cook’s lists — for example regional stories about New York — show Cook identifying multiple competitive seats (e.g., six competitive New York districts highlighted in November 2025), which reflects how Cook sorts seats into “Lean,” “Likely,” and “Toss‑Up” buckets even when full tables aren’t freely posted [6] [7].
3. The public 2026 Senate picture Cook is describing
Cook’s public Senate overview and analysis from 2025 frames the 2026 map as relatively unfavorable to Democrats: analysts warned Democrats have “few opportunities” to claw back the majority and described Democrats as underdogs who need near‑perfect performance to flip multiple seats, while laying out the core questions and vulnerable contests shaping the map [4] [8]. That qualitative Senate assessment accompanies Cook’s Senate‑ratings page, which likewise applies the seven‑point scale to each contest and is updated through the 2025–2026 cycle [2] [9].
4. How outside sites and media repackage Cook’s ratings
Aggregators and forecasting sites such as 270toWin republish Cook’s current 2026 House and Senate ratings and provide interactive maps based on Cook’s categorizations; these mirrors are a common way non‑subscribers view Cook’s current assessments [3] [10]. Local news outlets also cite Cook’s categorizations when summarizing competitive seats in a state, which demonstrates reliance on Cook’s ratings as a standard even when the full subscriber narratives are unavailable [6].
5. Limitations and how to get the detailed current ratings
The Cook site publicly affirms the existence of complete, race‑level ratings and narratives, but many of the granular, up‑to‑date race pages are subscriber‑only; publicly available Cook analyses summarize overall trends and spotlight particular states or races, while full tables of every House and Senate rating are accessible via Cook subscriptions or through third‑party republications like 270toWin [11] [12] [3]. For a definitive, current list of every 2026 House and Senate rating from Cook, the primary source is Cook’s ratings pages (subscriber access), with secondary access via trusted republishers named above [1] [2] [3].