North Carolina's Senate Field Is Unanimous for Cooper, While Forecasters and Talkers Split on Who Holds the Senate | MissedTakes Election Brief
Drafted by a language model from MissedTakes' graded data, then reviewed and approved by Ben Garves before publishing. How our posts are made
Who do pundits favor in North Carolina's Senate race?
All 16 pundits who have called North Carolina's Senate race pick Roy Cooper, including every one of the 3 forecasters and all 13 talkers tracked on the race. The field has more than tripled from 5 callers four weeks ago, and it was unanimous for Cooper then too. Polymarket prices Cooper at 98 cents to Michael Whatley's 2. VoteHub's polling average, 5 polls through October 25, has Cooper up 53.1 to 41, a 12.1-point lead.
The pick is the same across the field, but the records behind it vary widely. Tom Bevan called Cooper on September 28 carrying an accuracy of 97.6 on 18 graded calls from last cycle; Carl Cannon called him on October 29 with 20 graded calls at 93.3 accuracy. Lower on the list, Josh Kraushaar picked Cooper on October 13 with a record of just 5 graded calls, 20.8 accuracy and a MissedTakes Score of -40.4, and Ari Weitzman called him on October 22 off 6 graded calls at 20 accuracy.
| Pundit | Call date | Graded calls | Accuracy | MissedTakes Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tom Bevan | Sep 28 | 18 | 97.6 | 52.7 |
| David Nir | Oct 8 | 26 | 96.3 | -0.5 |
| Carl Cannon | Oct 29 | 20 | 93.3 | 33.8 |
| Justin Robert Young | Oct 8 | 7 | 91.7 | 27.8 |
| Erick-Woods Erickson | Oct 26 | 68 | 79.8 | 45.9 |
| Isaac Saul | Oct 22 | 63 | 79.4 | 46.6 |
| Ben Shapiro | Oct 14 | 81 | 63.9 | 25.3 |
| Ryan Girdusky | Oct 5 | 16 | 63.6 | 28.2 |
| Buck Sexton | Oct 6 | 25 | 59.9 | 11.0 |
| Ari Weitzman | Oct 22 | 6 | 20.0 | 20.4 |
| Josh Kraushaar | Oct 13 | 5 | 20.8 | -40.4 |
What arrived this week?
Steve Deace filed 11 calls on October 30 alone, the most of any pundit this week along with Erick-Woods Erickson. Deace put a margin on three races at once: Jon Husted to "win by a point or two" in Ohio's Senate special, Darline Graham by "5-9" in South Carolina, and Vivek Ramaswamy to "Lose by five or six" in Ohio's governor's race, while also calling the national House popular vote for Democrats by 10 points. Jon Favreau also weighed into the national House number that day, calling the Democratic margin "at least eight and a half or more, but probably more." Neither call has a graded election record behind it yet from last cycle.
Where does the field disagree on who holds the Senate?
Senate control now draws 26 callers, up from 11 four weeks ago, and the forecasters and talkers are not reading it the same way. Of the 3 forecasters tracked on the race, 2 pick Democratic control and 1 Republican. Of the 23 talkers, 14 pick Republican and 9 Democratic, putting the talkers' overall lean at 61 percent Republican against the forecasters' 67 percent Democratic. House control shows no such split: 40 callers, every one of them Democratic, up from 13 four weeks ago.
Who is standing alone against the field right now?
Mike Murphy is the only pundit on record picking Adam Hamilton to win Kansas's Senate seat, a call made September 29 against 9 other callers on the race. Murphy's record from last cycle runs to 12 graded calls, an accuracy of 17.3, and a MissedTakes Score of -8.1, a score below zero on calls that on balance did worse than picking the favorite would have.
On the record
The 2026 cycle now holds 708 calls from 103 pundits, with 126 of those calls made in the past week and 22 new since our last brief. None of it is graded yet; that waits on results. The full picture of who has called what is on the US Elections hub, and the pundits' standing from past cycles is on the election leaderboard.