{"id":44064,"date":"2026-10-30T13:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T17:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=44064"},"modified":"2026-10-30T13:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T17:05:11","slug":"the-cook-political-report-jessica-taylor-07-featured-in-wapo-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/the-cook-political-report-jessica-taylor-07-featured-in-wapo-article\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cook Political Report, Jessica Taylor ’07 featured in WAPO article"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In an article appearing in The Washington Post<\/a>, journalist Ian Ward explains The Cook Political Report, a trusted source for measuring shifts in the political and electoral landscape. Jessica Taylor, one of 10 analysts with the organization, is a 2007 Furman University political science<\/a> graduate and is quoted in the piece.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Cook Political Report, described as “Washington’s favorite political oracle,” leans on qualitative analysis to rate the competitiveness for upcoming elections. Journalists, political operatives, campaign staffers and election watchers closely follow its ratings, which place races into four categories – Solid, Likely, Lean, and Toss Up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And the team there gets it right most of the time. In an internal review of more than 10,000 races rated between 1984 and 2024, Cook found that 97% of its Likely ratings, and 94% of its Lean ratings were correct. Nearly all of its Solid ratings hit the mark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Taylor, a 2025 Bell Tower Award<\/a> recipient, is the U.S. Senate and governor’s editor for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Before joining Cook, she was a political reporter for National Public Radio for five years. She was also a contributing author to the 2020 edition of The Almanac of American Politics and was promoted to a senior author for the 2022 edition, becoming the first woman to hold that position in the book\u2019s 50-year history.<\/p>\n

Taylor was previously a senior analyst and reporter for The Rothenberg Political Report (now Inside Elections). She has reported for several prestigious news outlets over the past decade, including NBC News Political Unit, National Journal, Politico and The Hill, where she served as campaign editor.<\/p>\n

Taylor remains connected to Furman as a Pathways mentor and through her involvement with FurmanWIN events. She has also contributed to The Riley Institute\u2019s panel discussions on immigration, politics and cybersecurity. Taylor and The Cook Political Report’s Erin Covey, editor for the U.S. House, were Furman Tocqueville guest speakers during the 2024 general election.<\/span><\/p>\n

A subscription may be required to view the content. Furman ID holders may access the article on databases located at Furman University Libraries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Furman alum Jessica Taylor ’07 is part of The Cook Political Report, a closely watched and respected barometer of upcoming electoral races. The Washington Post lays out why the source is “Washington’s favorite political oracle.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":44074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,52,32,1943],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-library","category-politics-and-international-affairs","category-the-washington-post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44064"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44083,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44064\/revisions\/44083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}