# Sabato's Crystal Ball The free weekly election-analysis newsletter of the **University of Virginia Center for Politics**, founded in **2002** by political scientist **[[Larry Sabato]]**. It is one of the three race-rating operations this vault tracks alongside the **[[Cook Political Report]]** and Inside Elections, and the only one housed inside a university rather than run as a subscription business. ## Rating scale Crystal Ball uses a seven-point scale, which is why its labels differ from Cook's on the same race: **Safe D — Likely D — Leans D — Toss-up — Leans R — Likely R — Safe R** Cook's equivalent top category is "Solid," not "Safe," so a race carried as *Cook Solid R / Sabato Safe R* is agreement, not divergence. The vault's race files record all three raters separately for exactly this reason — a rating **change** by one house and not the others is the signal worth reading. ## In this vault Crystal Ball ratings appear in the `rating_sabato` frontmatter field on every **[[2026 Midterm Elections]]** race file and in the ratings-history sections of the Tier 1 dossiers. Documented 2026-cycle moves the vault has recorded include the shift of **[[MT-Sen-2026]]** from Likely R to **Safe R on August 12, 2026**, two days after Democratic nominee Bankhead declined to withdraw, and **[[NJ-07-2026]]** moving to Tilt D after the incumbent's undisclosed medical absence nationalized the race. Sabato himself is regularly quoted in coverage of the cycle. In September 2026, on Trump's super PAC deploying money into districts he carried by double digits, he told *The New Republic*: "If those are in danger, then a lot of other seats that are considered similarly safe for Republicans must be on the chopping block." See [[MAGA Inc]]. ## See Also - [[Larry Sabato]] · [[Cook Political Report]] - [[2026 Midterm Elections]] · [[2026 House Races Hub]] - [[MAGA Inc]] · [[Dummymander]]