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US Midterms 2026
15SEP

Cook moves six seats, all one way

3 min read
14:21UTC

Cook Political Report changed six House ratings on Thursday 3 September and moved every one toward the Democrats. Silver Bulletin's new FLIPR model, launched on Tuesday 11 August, then moved on a court order rather than a poll.

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PoliticsDeveloping
Key takeaway

Cook shifted six House seats toward Democrats with no move in the other direction.

Cook Political Report published six House rating changes on Thursday 3 September and moved every one of them toward the Democrats. 1 Michigan's 10th and Florida's 14th went to Toss Up. Ohio's 15th and 10th and Colorado's 3rd fell from Solid Republican to Likely Republican, and Michigan's 8th rose from Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic. Nothing moved the other way. Cook rates every House district on a seven-point scale and revises in batches, so a batch with no counter-move is the part worth noticing.

Florida's 14th repays a second look. Kathy Castor is the sitting Democrat there, yet the seat was rated Lean Republican, because a rating describes the district and Florida's 24R-4D map pushed hers rightward. A long-serving Democrat in a Republican-leaning seat now sits in a toss-up. The batch follows a summer in which Sabato's Crystal Ball moved three governor's races in July and the president's approval reached the worst reading of either of his terms .

Silver Bulletin launched its 2026 forecast model on Tuesday 11 August. Forecast with Leading Indicators, Polls and Expert Ratings (FLIPR) runs 40,000 simulations per update and forecasts House, Senate and gubernatorial races jointly, so it can price a Republican Senate alongside a Democratic House rather than treating the two as separate bets. 2

Its numbers moved after the Missouri ruling. FLIPR's estimate of Democrats winning House control went from about 81 per cent to about 83, and its average simulated Democratic seat count from 230 to 231. Its estimate of Emanuel Cleaver holding Missouri's 5th District went from 25 per cent to 98. 3 A court order rather than an opinion shift produced that jump, so it says nothing about what voters think. Silver Bulletin publishes these as one model's outputs, not as a statement about what happens on 3 November.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Two different ways of tracking which party is likely to win the House both moved toward the Democrats this week. Cook Political Report, which uses expert judgment, shifted six individual House races in the Democrats' favour and none the other way. Separately, a statistical model called FLIPR, which runs tens of thousands of simulations, jumped its Democratic control estimate from about 81 to 83 per cent, and its estimate that Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver keeps his seat leapt from about 25 to 98 per cent after Missouri's court ruling on the map.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The scale of Cleaver's swing traces directly to Missouri's Supreme Court ruling suspending HB 1: the district's competitiveness depends entirely on which map is used, and a simulation model updates that input instantly, while a qualitative service like Cook adjusts ratings on its own review cycle.

That difference in update mechanism, not disagreement over direction, explains why the two outlets' reactions differ so much in size.

What could happen next?
  • Meaning

    Missouri's court ruling had an immediate, quantifiable effect on a single House race's national forecast, showing how much one state's redistricting fight can move overall control estimates.

  • Risk

    If Missouri's map fight reverses again, through the pending SCOTUS stay or the November referendum, FLIPR's Cleaver estimate has no fundamental basis to hold at 98 per cent.

Sources:Cook Political Report·Silver Bulletin·Silver Bulletin
Mentions:Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin →Missouri →Cook Political Report →Kathy Castor →Florida →Michigan →Pennsylvania →Sabato's Crystal Ball →
First Reported In

Update #16 · Missouri suspends its map, and votes on it

Cook Political Report· 7 Sept 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Missouri map suspended, sent to voters
The Missouri map suspension is what moved FLIPR's House and Missouri-5th estimates.
Occurred 3 Sept 2026
Read story →
Cook moves seven seats, none back
Cook's 3 September moves follow its own 18 June ratings round, extending the same series of Democratic-direction changes.
Occurred 18 Jun 2026
Read story →
This Event
Cook moves six seats, all one way
Six independently rated races shifted in one direction with nothing moving back, which is a stronger signal than any single survey.
Different Perspectives
Cook Political Report
Cook Political Report
Cook Political Report published a dated House ratings snapshot on 11 September and changed no seat's rating, holding at 206 Democratic to 208 Republican with 21 tossups since its 3 September batch. Publishing without a change is a dated decision, not an oversight, leaving Republicans ahead on seats while Democrats lead the national vote by 6.6 points.
Department of Justice
Department of Justice
A Justice Department official told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that preservation letters like the one sent to Aguilar go to states the department is in active litigation against over incomplete voter registration lists. The department would not answer the paper's specific questions about the personal investigation notice riding inside the same letter.
Francisco Aguilar
Francisco Aguilar
Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar publicly rejected Justice Department pressure on 12 September, days after a 4 September letter combined a records-preservation demand with a personal notice that he is under investigation. He said he will not fold until a judge orders him to, making his office's compliance a political stand rather than a routine filing.
Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Kavanaugh
Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied Missouri's state-track stay application alone on 8 September without referring it, then sent the separate federal-track application in Onder v. State of Missouri to the full Court, which stayed it on 10 September. His choice of which application to keep and which to share decided how much of the fight one justice controlled.
Robert Onder and the federal plaintiffs
Robert Onder and the federal plaintiffs
Robert Onder and three other Republican plaintiffs won a temporary restraining order from Chief Judge Stephen R. Clark on 8 September ordering Missouri to use HB 1, then lost it when the Supreme Court stayed it on 10 September. Their federal route ran parallel to Hoskins's own reversal and ended the same way, with the 2022 map governing 3 November.
Richard Von Glahn and People Not Politicians
Richard Von Glahn and People Not Politicians
Richard Von Glahn and People Not Politicians won Von Glahn v. Hoskins on 3 September, persuading the Missouri Supreme Court that their referendum petition stripped HB 1 of effect and sent it to voters as Proposition A. The contempt finding against Hoskins this week confirms their win held even after the state's chief election officer tried to reverse it.