Election-tracking resources to guide you through 2018 (and beyond)

Last updated: September 26, 2018

(Photo: Getty Images)

It can be difficult to follow the regular developments of the campaign season without feeling overwhelmed. So, as November’s midterm elections approach, I thought I would offer some of the resources I’ve found to be helpful for keeping an eye on the most recent election news. It is by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully helps put things into a little better focus and makes it easier to follow the goings-on in races and elections across the country.

Daily Follows

A few great election-related news and analysis outlets:

• Cook Political Report
• FiveThirtyEight
• The Hill’s campaigns page
• Politico’s campaigns page
• Roll Call’s At the Races
• Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire (includes non-campaign stories as well, but one of the best political news sources out there)
• Blue Midterm 2018 reddit page (primarily for Democrats, but the page does a great job of highlighting campaign news from across the country)

Newsletters

Start your day with any of these morning news aggregators:

• DailyKos’s “Morning Digest”
• The Atlas Project’s morning news clips (yes, this is a shameless plug for a service my organization puts out, but it’s a great resource for stories culled from local news outlets across the country; scroll all the way to the bottom of the link to subscribe)
• NBC’s “First Read” (subscribe on the right-hand side)
• RealClearPolitics’ “The Takeaway”
• The Hill’s campaign newsletter
• Politico’s “Morning Score”

Ratings Organizations

These groups track races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and governor and, based on a number of factors, ascribe race “ratings” to each one (e.g. “Solid Republican,” “Lean Democratic,” “Toss Up”). Each has slightly different ways of calculating their ratings — and each offers its own analysis — but they typically align on key races and have mostly solid track records in their predictions. The ratings may change over the course of a election cycle as new race developments occur.

• Cook Political Report
• Inside Elections
• Sabato’s Crystal Ball

Polling Data

• FiveThirtyEight – Check in here to monitor Trump’s approval ratings, the generic congressional ballot, all public polls, and how often your member of Congress votes with Trump.
• Gallup – One of the nation’s oldest pollsters, Gallup is best known for tracking presidential approval ratings and conducting issue-based polling.
• HuffPost Pollster – Use their database to search for polls ranging from Trump’s approval rating to individual races and issues.
• r/ElectionPolls — A reddit page that tracks and posts new polls as they come out.
• RealClearPolitics – One of the best aggregating polling sources around. Search by race to see each contests’s polling average as well as the details of individual surveys.
• Morning Consult – track’s Trump’s approval rating across all 50 states, the generic congressional ballot, and incumbent approval ratings

Tracking Campaign Donations

• Federal Election Commission – the federal agency responsible for enforcing campaign-finance laws; candidates running for federal office must file regular reports documenting who has contributed to their campaigns
• Open Secrets – a non-profit that allows users to track federal campaign contributions and lobbying by lobbying firms, individual lobbyists, industry, federal agency, and bills; it also allows you to track personal financial disclosures of all members of the U.S. Congress, the president, and top members of the administration
• Follow the Money – a project of the National Institute on Money in Politics, this website tracks spending at every level of government, from federal races to governor to state legislature, as well as ballot measures, outside groups, and lobbying

Monitoring Congress

Here are some tools to keep abreast of who your members of Congress are, what bills are being voted on, how they are voting, and more.

• GovTrack – look up your members of Congress and follow bills every step of the way, including by signing up for alerts about any piece of legislation
• Roll Call – offers useful background primers on members of Congress
• VoteView – while this page also allows you to track bills, the website’s authors — political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal — have also scored every member of Congress to determine where they fall on the ideological spectrum relative to every other member (i.e. they have determined how liberal or conservative every member is based on their voting history
• House and Senate roll call votes (the official chamber pages for tracking how members voted on every piece of legislation)

Twitter Follows

If you use Twitter to get your election news, there is no shortage of quality analysts and organizations whom you should consider following:

News Media:

• The Associated Press (@ AP)
• CNN Politics (@ CNNPolitics)
• Daily Kos Elections (@ DKElections)
• FiveThirtyEight Politics (@ 538politics)
• Meet the Press (@ MeetThePress)
• NBC Politics (@ NBCPolitics)
• Politico (@ politico)

Analysts/Reporters:

• Ally Mutnick (@ allymutnick) – House Races Reporter, National Journal
• Amy Walter (@ amyewalter) – National Editor, Cook Political Report
• Ariel Edwards-Levy (@ aedwardslevy) – Reporter and Polling Editor, HuffPost Pollster
• Benjy Sarlin (@ BenjySarlin) – Reporter, NBC News
• Bridget Bowman (@ bridgetbhc) – Politics Reporter, Roll Call
• Carrie Dann (@ CarrieNBCNews) – Political Editor, NBC News
• Charlie Cook (@ CharlieCookDC) – Editor & Publisher, Cook Political Report
• Chuck Todd (@ chucktodd) – Moderator, Meet the Press; Political Director, NBC News
• Clare Malone (@ ClareMalone) – Senior Political Writer, FiveThirtyEight
• Daniel Nichanian (@ taniel) – Postdoc, University of Chicago
• Dave Wasserman (@ Redistrict) – U.S. House editor, Cook Political Report; Contributor, FiveThirtyEight and NBC News
• David Byler (@ databyler) – Staff Writer and Chief Elections Analyst, The Weekly Standard
• David Leonhardt (@ DLeonhardt) – Columnist, New York Times
• Dave Weigel (@ daveweigel) – Politics Reporter, Washington Post
• G. Elliott Morris (@ gelliottmorris) – Data Journalist, The Economist
• Harry Enten (@ ForecasterEnten) – Analyst, CNN; formerly of FiveThirtyEight
• Henry Olsen (@ henryolsenEPPC) – Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
• J. Miles Coleman (@ JMilesColeman) – Elections Analyst & maps guy, Decision Desk HQ
• Jennifer Duffy (@ jennifereduffy) – Political Analyst, Cook Political Report
• Kyle Klondik (@ kkondik) – Managing Editor, Sabato’s Crystal Ball
• Larry Sabato (@ LarrySabato) – Director, UVA Center for Politics; editor, Sabato’s Crystal Ball
• Leah Askarinam (@ leahaskarinam) – Reporter & Analyst, Inside Elections
• Mark Murray (@ mmurraypolitics) – Senior Political Editor, NBC News
• Matthew Isbell (@ mcimaps) – Political Mapmaker, MCI Maps
• Micah Cohen (@ micahcohen) – Politics Editor, FiveThirtyEight
• Michael McDonald (@ ElectProject) – Associate Professor, University of Florida
• Nate Cohn (@ Nate_Cohn) – Editor, New York Times’ Upshot Blog
• Nate Silver (@ NateSilver538) – Editor-in-Chief, FiveThirtyEight
• Nathan Gonzales (@ nathanlgonzales) – Editor & Publisher, Inside Elections
• Nathaniel Rakich (@ baseballot) – Analyst, Inside Elections; Contributor, FiveThirtyEight; former co-worker and good friend
• Rick Hasen (@ rickhasen) – Professor of Law and Political Science, UC-Irvine; Election Law Blogger
• Sean Trende (@ SeanTrende) – Sr. Elections Analyst, RealClearPolitics
• Simone Pathé (@ sfpathe) – Senior Politics Reporter, Roll Call
• Stephen Wolf (@ PoliticsWolf) – Staff Writer, Daily Kos Elections
• Steve Kornacki (@ SteveKornacki) – National Political Correspondent, NBC News and MSNBC
• Stu Rothenberg (@ StuPolitics) – Senior Editor, Inside Elections
• Thomas Edsall (@ Edsall) – Columnist, New York Times
• Vaughn Hilliard (@ VaughnHillyard) – Political Reporter, NBC News

Research/Data Organizations:

• Center for Politics (@ Center4Politics)
• Cook Political Report (@ CookPolitical)
• Decision Desk HQ (@ DecisionDeskHQ)
• Inside Elections (@ InsideElections)
• Pew Research Center (@ pewresearch)

Polling:

• CBS News Poll (@ CBSNewsPoll)
• Fox News Poll (@ foxnewspoll) – For those skeptical liberals, Fox actually has some great polling
• Gallup (@ GallupNews)
• GQR Research (@ GQRResearch)
• HuffPost Pollster (@ pollsterpolls)
• Political Polls (@ PpollingNumbers)
• PollingReport.com (@ pollreport)
• Public Policy Polling (@ ppppolls)
• Quinnipiac Poll (@ QuinnipiacPoll)
• Reuters Polls (@ ReutersPolls)
• Washington Post Polls (@ PostPolls)

Daily Kos

Though a progressive/Democratic-leaning outlet, Daily Kos is home to some of the best-respected and most comprehensive electoral data sets and resources around. Click here for the full list.

Here are some of the most popular ones:

• Special elections calendar
• Special election results (compares candidate performances to the 2016 and 2012 presidential candidates)
• Primary elections calendar
• Presidential election results by congressional district (2016, 2012, 2008)
• Presidential election results by state-legislative district (not available for all states)
• Congressional candidate demographics and pronunciation guide

Other Resources

• Ballotpedia — An “online encyclopedia” of politics; come here to find out the partisan makeup of state legislatures, who is going to be on the ballot in upcoming elections, the electoral history of an office or state, and much more
• Center for Women in American Politics – A source for tracking information on the women in elected office across the country
• The congressional “casualty list” – A morbid-sounding name for a tool that helps you track who has left/is leaving Congress
• Taegan Goddard’s Political Dictionary
• POLITICO’s midterm election calendar, to help you stay up to date on when states’ elections are being held
• Larry Sabato’s 2018 Political Atlas – breaks down every race for Senate, House, and governor in the country, including race ratings, fundraising, past election results, and social media trends
• Vote.org – Register to vote, find your polling place, sign up for election reminders, and more
• A list of voter-ID laws by state (from the National Conference of State Legislatures)

If you think there are some other helpful resources missing from my list, please let me know! I consider this a living document and am happy to update it as new suggestions come in.