# Ohio's Forecasters Are Unanimous for Brown While Two Talkers Hold the Line for Husted | MissedTakes Election Brief

*Published 2026-10-17 — MissedTakes*

*Drafted by a language model from MissedTakes' graded data, then reviewed and approved by Ben Garves before publishing.*

Seventeen days out, the clearest split in the record isn't a reversal, it's a gap between the forecasters and the talkers that shows up in two Senate races at once, in opposite directions.

## Ohio: forecasters all in, two talkers won't go along

Twelve pundits have called [Ohio's Senate special](/elections/races/2026-senate-oh-special): 10 for [Sherrod Brown](/elections/candidates/sherrod-brown), 2 for [Jon Husted](/elections/candidates/jon-husted). Split the field and the picture sharpens: all three forecasters tracking the race say Brown, while the nine talkers split 7-2 for him. Polymarket has Brown at 66 cents to Husted's 36, and VoteHub's six-poll average puts him up 46.9 to 42.9, a 4-point lead.

The forecasters are explicit about how thin that is. [Geoffrey Skelley](/pundits/geoffrey-skelley) called Brown "a very narrow favorite in our forecast" on October 2, a call that sits on a record of just 8 graded calls this past cycle, right 72.9% of the time with a MissedTakes Score of 19.7. G. Elliott Morris, who carries no graded record on this site, called it "leaning more towards the Democrats" on October 1 before softening to "somewhere between a sort of toss-up and a lean Democratic seat" on October 3, same pick both times, just a different degree of confidence. Chuck Todd, also without a graded record here, called it "lean D" on October 7 alongside a Brown-plus-2 margin call.

The two talkers breaking from that lean are [Clay Travis](/pundits/clay-travis), who called Husted on October 6 (a call sitting on 55 graded calls, 71.1% accuracy, MissedTakes Score 30.6), and Jessica Anderson, who called Husted on October 1 with no graded record of her own yet. On the other side, [Erick-Woods Erickson](/pundits/erick-woods-erickson) picked Brown on September 30 carrying the strongest record in the race (68 graded calls, 79.8% accuracy, score 45.9), while [Josh Kraushaar](/pundits/josh-kraushaar) moved to "leans now on the Democratic side" on October 13 with by far the weakest: just 5 graded calls, 20.8% accuracy, and a MissedTakes Score of -40.4, below the metric's neutral baseline.

![Ohio's forecasters don't match its talkers](/posts/visuals/b3f75a36-7504-40ad-8f40-ec34052ee4e4.png)

## Texas: the same gap, the other way

[Texas's Senate race](/elections/races/2026-senate-tx) shows the identical structure pointed at the opposite outcome. Both forecasters calling the race, including Skelley, who put James Talarico at "narrowly favored, 58%" on October 8, say Talarico. The market agrees (Polymarket has Talarico at 63 cents to Ken Paxton's 39) and so does VoteHub's seven-poll average (Talarico 48.2 to Paxton 46.6, a 1.6-point edge). But the talkers are the opposite of Ohio's: 11 of 15 still say Paxton, including Erickson on October 8, Clay Travis across three separate calls since October 6, and Ben Shapiro on October 14.

The newest talker to break from that majority is Sarah Isgur, who called Talarico on October 16, the same day she also projected a 5-seat Democratic net gain in the Senate overall. She has exactly one graded call on this site so far (100% accuracy, a MissedTakes Score of 0), too small a sample to read much into, but her pick puts her with the forecasters and the market rather than the talker majority she sits among.

![Texas talkers are still mostly with Paxton](/posts/visuals/177ad54c-828c-49a0-8315-dfd6627ca606.png)

## Volume

Chuck Todd remains the most prolific caller this cycle at 76 calls, 18 of them in the past week alone. Ben Shapiro has been nearly as active lately, adding 13 calls in the past seven days. The board overall picked up 63 calls this week and 21 since our last brief, split across both Senate races above and the Carolinas, where South Carolina's field stayed unanimous for Darline Graham as three more talkers (Mike Warren, Sarah Isgur, Barton Swaim) added their names on October 16.

## On the record

The 2026 cycle now holds 479 calls from 80 pundits, 11 of them forecasters, with none yet graded against results. For the full tally, see the [election leaderboard](/elections/leaderboard) and the [US Elections hub](/elections).