Charlie Cook is Editor and Publisher of the Cook Political Report and a political analyst for National Journal magazine, where he writes a twice weekly column. Charlie is considered one of the nation's leading independent and non-partisan authorities on American politics and U.S. elections. In 2010, Charlie was a 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 the Spring semester of 2013, Charlie served as a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Prior to beginning his column for National Journal and it's sister publication, National Journal Daily in 1998, Charlie wrote a column for 12 years in Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. Charlie has served as a political analyst or election night analyst for CBS, CNN and NBC News and has been a frequent political analyst for all three major broadcast news networks and has appeared on Meet the Press and This Week.

Charlie founded the Cook Political Report in 1984 and it has become one of the most respected political publications in the country. The New York Times has called Charlie "one of the best political handicappers in the nation" and has said the Cook Political Report is "a newsletter which both parties regard as authoritative." The late David Broder wrote in the Washington Post that Charlie was "perhaps the best non-partisan tracker of Congressional races," while CBS News' Bob Schieffer called the Cook Political Report, "the bible of the political community."