The Lobby launches tracker matching lawmakers’ promises to their votes

The Lobby on Oct. 20 launched a Congressional Promise Tracker that compares what the 383 members of Congress on the 2026 ballot said they would do with the bills they backed and the votes they cast. The tool is part of the outlet’s Midterm Field Guide and aims to show whether lawmakers kept, tried, ignored or contradicted their campaign promises.

Why it matters: - The tracker gives voters a way to compare campaign promises with governing records before early voting and Election Day on Nov. 3. - It covers every member of Congress running for re-election in November, 383 lawmakers in all. - The tool is built to show whether members of Congress kept, tried to keep, ignored or contradicted the promises they made.

What happened: - The Lobby launched its Congressional Promise Tracker on Oct. 20 in Denver. - The tracker pairs each promise with the member’s own words from campaign websites, official releases, ads, interviews, debates and news stories that quote them. - Each promise includes a link to the source used to verify it. - The tracker then checks the related bills and the member’s record, including sponsorships, cosponsorships, votes and amendments.

The details: - Each checked promise receives one of four verdicts: Kept, Tried, No action or Contradicted. - Kept means a backed bill became law, or the member cast the final vote promised. - Tried means the member introduced, cosponsored or voted for a bill that did not become law. - No action means Congress considered bills on the issue and the member backed none, or the record shows nothing on it. - Contradicted means the member voted against a bill that would have done it, or for a bill that worked against it. - A member’s score out of 100 averages those verdicts and adds attendance at roll call votes. - No score appears until at least 20 promises have been checked for that member. - So far, the tracker has published 10,718 verdicts. - Of those verdicts, 65% are Tried, 23% are Kept, 11% are No action and less than 1% are Contradicted. - Among the 334 members with a score, the median is 78 out of 100. - The median score is 77 for Democrats and 78 for Republicans. - The other 49 members do not yet have a score, almost all because fewer than 20 promises have been checked.

Between the lines: - The tracker is designed as a public accountability tool, not a partisan scorecard. - Verdicts are decided by computer models using published rules and the public record. - A person does not review each verdict before publication. - Each verdict page shows the reasoning behind the result. - The methodology is published on the site, and campaigns or readers can report errors at corrections page.

What’s next: - The tracker will keep adding checked promises and scores as the election cycle continues. - The Lobby’s 2026 Midterm Field Guide includes all 435 House races and 35 Senate races, plus each incumbent’s record, campaign money and redistricting maps. - Every score, verdict total and one fully sourced promise per member is free. - The full guide, with every promise, verdict and supporting bills and votes, costs $6, or $5 for readers of The Lobby’s free weekly newsletter. - Journalists can request full access at press@thelobbynews.com.

The bottom line: - The Lobby is betting voters want a simpler way to test campaign promises against congressional behavior, one promise and one vote at a time.