He's, of course, the founder of Sabado's Crystal Ball, the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
And Mr. Savado, 18 months or so before the midterm elections, what would you say is the most important poll number or metric that the savvy political viewer should pay attention to to get a sense of what direction the midterms may be going?
And there's really no opportunity to get control until 18 months from now.
I suppose you can say Democrats have influence on some votes, though not the current discussion about the big beautiful bill, because that's reconciliation takes only a simple majority and the vice presidential vote counts.
But they control nothing, as you said.
They don't control the White House.
They don't control all the appointees of the White House that run loads and loads of things beyond what we see in the headlines each day.
They don't control the House of Representatives.
They don't control the U.S. Senate.
And they certainly don't control the Supreme Court.
So, yeah, there's plenty of reason for them to be depressed.
Although, I would just remind you that MASH was completely wrong with that opening song that said, suicide is painless.
It is not painless.
It is very painful.
So you have to continue living and fight, fight, fight.
Larry Sabado is our guest joining us until about 9:30 Eastern time this morning.
And he is always happy to take your questions, your comments.
Phone lines, as usual, Democrats 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Independents 202-748-8002.
And as the phone lines light up, Professor Sabado, there are gubernatorial races taking place this year in your home state of Virginia and New Jersey as well.
How much should folks outside the Garden State and the Commonwealth be paying attention to those races?
They're the first major indicators of how voters are reacting to the incumbent presidential administration, but also their incumbent governors.
New Jersey has a Democratic governor, Phil Murphy.
Virginia has a Republican governor, Glenn Young.
So president, probably first.
Virginia and New Jersey usually elect the nominee of the party, not in the White House.
But it is an absolute.
It's not an iron rule.
There's been one exception in Virginia from 1977 to the present.
Now, that's not many.
One out of all those elections.
And we change governors every four years.
You can't run again until another term intercedes.
And in New Jersey, it's mainly true.
It's not as absolute as it's been in Virginia, near absolute.
But it still is a major indicator.
So sure, you pay attention to it.
But again, I'm going to say, and it will be a whole year until a third of the Senate and all of the House and loads of governorships across the country and state legislatures are elected.
How much can happen in a day anymore?
I mean, really, I have great sympathy for people who actually have legitimate jobs.
I don't.
You know, I have fun and I follow politics.
And that's what I do for a living.
And I can't even keep up with everything that's going on.
And so it's tough for the average person to do.
They focus on voting when voting comes near.
And a lot of the early voting starts in late September, early October.
So we have a longer election period than we used to, but it's still ages away, even by November when Virginia and New Jersey elect new governors.
Well, it isn't any of the former presidents, with all due respect to them.
But their history all the way to ancient history.
I won't say who's what.
But, you know, it's just, it's pointless to have them do it.
Look at the legislative leaders.
I'm sure they do a fine job in their caucus, you know, Schumer in the Senate and Jeffries in the House, but they don't, they're not even recognized by a large majority of Americans.
They may recognize the name a little bit.
They can't match up the name with the person.
You know, I always remind people that an old poll showed, it's not that old, that about a third of Americans can't find Great Britain on a blank map of the world.
I mean, my God, it's an island.
You know, it's pretty easy to find, but they can't find it because they don't pay attention.
They don't care about it.
They should care about it.
And that's just the way it is.
I don't think you're ever going to change people as much as we try to emphasize civic education, which is what we do at the UBA Center for Politics.
As you know, John, as a graduate, a proud alumnus of the University of Virginia.
Plenty of calls for you down there at the Center for Politics joining us this morning on the Washington Journal.
Roger is up for Springfield, Illinois.
Democrat.
Good morning.
You're on with Larry Sabado.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just want to make a comparison between the Trump asking for the list of international students and taking the $2 billion from Harvard because they won't give him the list of international.
But when we asked for the cryptocurrency dinner list, he's refusing to give that list.
So on two other occasions, we asked for a list of dinners or private dinners that he had, but he has refused.
Secondly, what's the end game of this Trump regime?
The end game, they'll have to talk about everybody has their suspicions of one sort or another, whether you're pro-Trump or anti-Trump.
You've got an opinion about it.
But what we know is what they're doing.
Now, let's focus on disclosure, because I think that was the major part of your question.
Absolutely.
That whole list of crypto millionaires, billionaires should be released.
This is so unprecedented to do things like this.
You know, it's not just the 200 million to 400 million.
I've seen different figures for the pleasure of the jumbo jet being given to Trump, the U.S. government, I guess, and then the Trump Library for his personal use after he leaves office.
All of this should be disclosed, and it's totally unprecedented.
Someone calculated an estimate for all the gifts given to prior presidents before Trump.
They didn't come close to equaling the price of this one jumbo jet.
And it's crypto billionaire stuff.
Look, his family is enriching itself.
Trump is enriching himself.
He did some of it in the first term, but he's breaking all records in this term.
And as far, and I don't approve of that, I hope you don't approve it.
I hope nobody approves of it because it's got conflict of interest written all over it.
And I would recommend to you a wonderful article written by Evan Osnos in this week's The New Yorker.
And you're really, you're going to, you're going to be bug-eyed as you read it when you see what's really happening in this country.
And a tiny group of incredibly wealthy people are controlling a great deal, not just of the wealth, but of the decisions made, even more so than usual.
They've always been influential, but not to this degree.
Now, as far as Harvard's concerned, hey, I'm a guy who've spent my entire career.
I'm in my 70s, started in my 20s in higher education.
So guess what?
I support Harvard.
I know that's a shock, but Harvard individually has contributed so much to the country.
And forget about the politics for a moment.
I don't approve of any of the anti-Semitism that is there.
I don't know all the details of it.
But I sure recognize the tremendous advances that have been made in science and medicine because of the research done at Harvard and at other universities.
This is not something to be played with.
It's not a play toy for any politician or administration.
So, yeah, I feel strongly about that, but I've got an internal bias having spent my life in higher education.
You're very kind to say that there are loads of people rooting for my retirement.
So we'll just, we'll see.
Going to stay as long as I enjoy it and i've enjoyed it always, and i'll stay as long as my health permits it.
And i'm envious of this gentleman's sister and we.
I did go to go to UH Catholic and he should write me and tell me who his sister is.
I don't recognize the voice because it's not his sister's.
Uh, I had 13 years of Catholic education and and it was a tough 13 years, like corporal punishment was in in the 50s and and 60s but I learned a lot.
They probably because I was afraid, like everybody else in that school, but it worked and I got a wonderful grounding in Catholic education and I salute them and I will always be grateful to them.
Uh now, as far, there were a lot of questions in there.
Yeah, all right, media bias answer, yes uh, let me go to UH Virginia governor.
I don't mean to take it lightly, but there are so many biases in so many places in different directions, and this is a very different environment.
Uh since uh, i'm guessing this gentleman's age he's, he's not that far away from me and, as a result.
He remembers when we had three, really two, national networks, PBS hadn't even been created and ABC wasn't really together.
So you had CBS and NBC with a half an hour of news as of 1962.
For CBS 1962, before that, it was 15 minutes of news on television and you had the same anchors and the same tiny number of reporters, all white male.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I think we've accomplished a lot, uh.
But you know, same perspectives uh, and pretty much in the same order.
The stories were in the same order and that's what we had, plus our newspapers.
We all read a morning newspaper, we all read an afternoon newspaper uh, and those, those newspapers are mainly gone, i'm sorry to say, or they're online, and that's a whole different environment.
And now you have social media full of misinformation and disinformation, some intentional, some unintentional.
But you also have media organizations from every conceivable point of view.
So there, there may be there are a lot of problems with today's media, but I go back so far and i'll bet you do too uh, that you can see we're in a much better place, except for the disinformation, than we were many decades ago.
So let's look on the bright side, always look on the bright side of life and no, I won't sing.
What they use against me to encourage retirement uh, Virginia.
Look right now.
I would go with the historical average, in the sense that the Democrats uh, are more likely to win than the Republicans, because Trump is in the White House, Republicans are in control of everything and there are controversies that build up and Virginia has become a Light blue state.
It's a light blue state, and there are purple edges to it.
And it can still go the other way.
Lots of things can happen.
But you start from that premise.
I wouldn't say necessarily the same thing in New Jersey, by the way.
New Jersey can end up being very competitive as it was four years ago when the Republican nearly won, nearly ousted the incumbent Democratic governor, who's retiring because it's the end of his two terms, and it looks likely to be the same Republican nominee.
So that would be unusual.
I'm not predicting it's too early, but it would be interesting if the Republicans took over New Jersey and the Democrats took over Virginia.
But that's just one of the possible outcomes.
And the House of Delegates will probably go the way of the gubernatorial election.
And the other two statewide positions, lieutenant governor and attorney general, often are just coattail elections, depending on who's winning the governorship.
I don't want to oversimplify, but that's the way it's been recently, at least in Virginia.
From Virginia and New Jersey to the Empire State, here's a headline on the front page of the New York Times: Son of Harlem, who ascended to 23-term pillar of the House.
It's the obituary for Charlie Wrangel, 1930 to 2025.