David N. Wasserman is senior editor and elections analyst for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Recognized as one of the nation’s top nonpartisan election forecasters, Wasserman leads the development of key data visualizations and has managed the Report’s coverage of the U.S. House and redistricting developments since 2007.
Wasserman 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, and the Economist. He has served as an analyst for the NBC News Decision Desk on election nights since 2008.
In the spring of 2019, Wasserman was named a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, where he led a seminar on congressional elections. A native of New Jersey, he holds a BA in government with distinction from the University of Virginia, where he was awarded the Emmerich-Wright Outstanding Thesis Prize.
His project, “Road Map to the Middle Ground: Restoring Competitiveness in Congressional Elections,” aims to shine a light on the value of competitiveness in elections. After all, the share of seats that are within either party’s reach determines how many lawmakers have a genuine political incentive to govern in a manner that reflects the views of a broad (rather than narrow) range of voters. Wasserman will evaluate and compare the success of anti-gerrymandering reforms passed prior to 2021 and propose a set of best practices for those crafting future reforms with an eye toward 2031.
May 2024
