Larry Sabato analyzes the 2026 midterms, predicting out-of-power gains despite Democratic challenges from Iran tensions and rising gas prices. He notes only 14 competitive House seats remain as high retirement rates ensure party loyalty, while 85% oppose ground troops in Iran. Viewers discuss the 26th Amendment, UVA's religious history, and Trump's zero impeachment odds due to Senate polarization. Ultimately, entrenched two-party dynamics and corruption concerns like the Epstein files continue to shape voter sentiment beyond standard partisan lines. [Automatically generated summary]
And the House has gabbled out after the Senate last week rejected its spending bill to fund the Homeland Security Department through May 22nd.
The chamber plans to hold another procedural session this week before it returns on April 14th for legislative business.
Although votes are scheduled during these brief sessions, it is possible that members could ask to immediately pass the Senate's DHS funding bill by unanimous consent, which would fund the agency through the end of September, except for ICE and customs and border protection.
When the House reconvenes, be sure to follow our live coverage here on C-SPAN.
Joining us now to keep the midterm discussion ongoing is University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabado, here to discuss 2026 and other news of the day.
Larry, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
I want to mention Kyle Condit, my managing editor, and J. Miles Coleman, who does a great deal of research and some wonderful and beautiful maps for us.
And we have a lot of student interns who work with us too.
What we do is gather as much information as we can about each race.
I tell people right up front, so I hope they listen, that there are seven months to go.
So the numbers that I'm about to suggest can change.
Seven months is a long time, particularly in the Trump era, right?
He's making news every half hour on the half hour, and sometimes it's all night long.
So you never know what's going to happen.
And seven months is a long time.
So the fundamentals I'm going to suggest are those that exist now and probably, probably will exist in the fall.
This being a midterm election, inevitably, inevitably, the out-of-power party is going to gain seats.
There are only two modern elections where that hasn't happened: 1998 under Clinton for the second term and Bush's first term because of 9-11 in 2002.
Otherwise, the out-of-power party gains seats.
Now, sometimes they don't gain very many.
It depends on the circumstances, depends on how many vacancies there are, depends on lots of things.
The economy almost always is a factor.
And sometimes foreign wars, foreign wars have played a part in a number of these elections.
So the odds are that Democrats will gain seats in the House, maybe gain seats in the Senate.
That is much less certain.
And I see a lot of predictions that are more precise, and I really don't know how that can be done unless you're guessing.
And some people guess well, and I salute them for that.
But the seats that are up in the Senate make the task for Democrats very difficult.
Not impossible, and they have become more possible because of recent events, including the war with Iran and the increase in gas prices and the affordability issue and so on.
But it's still a tough road to hoe, or it's a tall mountain, a high mountain to climb.
The House is another situation entirely.
There, you have enough seats easily to make the difference between Democrats and Republicans because there are only a few seats separating them.
I don't want to cite a precise number because it seems to change day by day, depending on special elections and who decides to resign and who involuntarily passes to the next life.
So it's very close.
Just a few seats would make a difference.
And even though the districts today are not the districts we used to know where you could have massive changes in a single election, Now both parties have preserved their incumbents and even non-incumbents that they want to succeed the incumbents so much that the vast majority of these House elections are predictable.
I mean, it's like the Pollet Bureau in Russia.
And I'm not calling our wonderful congressman communists.
Don't start writing me about that.
But I'm simply saying competition has been bled out of the system.
So the changes may be more modest than some are suggesting or some are hoping for or some are fearing.
But underlying all of this is the fact that competition is less serious and less intense than it once was.
And I think that's a shame.
We have so many solid red states and so many solid blue states.
And you have, you know, six, seven, eight purple competitive states.
And so the elections are over before they start.
You and I could sit here and pick most of the winners, a large majority of the winners in the House and the Senate today.
So let me ask you, because I know you didn't want to cite the number, but as of 8.04 Eastern this morning on April 6th, the GOP holds narrow house majority for, I mean, 217 seats to Democrats, 214 seats.
You rated that only 13 GOP held seats in one Democratic seat, one Democratic seat.
Those are the toss-up races.
So is that what you're saying when you're saying that because of the lack of competition, because of some of these gerrymander districts, is that what factors into just the few amount of toss-up seats on the GOP side and the one toss-up seat on the Democratic side?
Yes, there have been years in American history when it was considerably larger than that, but you are absolutely correct.
This is one of the highest numbers.
I would caution people, though.
I've had many people write in or call or whatever and say, doesn't this suggest a major turnover in Congress?
No, look at the seats.
A majority, probably a clear majority of the seats of those retiring are either safe or likely for the same party.
So the successors will, in the vast majority of cases, be either R or D, the same letter that you have right now.
Now, why are people leaving?
You know, everybody criticizes politicians and congressmen and so on.
Whatever you think about them, and however you like or dislike their votes, it is an exhausting job for the vast majority of them who really apply themselves and do what they're supposed to do in their districts and in Washington.
It's exhausting.
I can't tell you the number of congressmen over the years who said to me, I don't know whether I can last or not.
And my family is worse than I am.
They're the ones really wearing out and suggesting it's time to go to greener pastures.
So I think that's more of a factor.
And throw in the fact that, and I hate to even bring it up, that we have a record number by far, a record number of threats against members of Congress, both parties.
That is outrageous.
These people must be prosecuted.
They have to be found and prosecuted.
You can't run a democracy when people fear for their lives simply for representing their districts and casting their votes.
Now, I want to turn to the conflict in Iran because obviously that's dominating headlines today.
And we enter into its sixth week.
But polls show that Americans oppose the president's handling of the Iranian conflict.
They're also opposed to the idea of troops on the ground.
And the president has been basically resolute in his approach to Iran the last week.
We've seen him over the last weekend kind of escalating some of these threats.
But I wonder, from what you guys have found, if the war continues and escalates, how will or will the Republican Party and those candidates running for Republican seats, will they be blamed both on the House side and the Senate side?
Of course, we know that they've rejected war power votes in the past.
It's not as important as the economy unless it's a very hot war.
And you mentioned the critical factor, whether there are ground troops.
You know, you're talking to a guy whose formative years, teenage, and 20s were during Vietnam.
And that's a perfect example.
Now, it started out reasonably popular under Kennedy, for example, and even the beginning of the Johnson administration because the numbers were small.
We're talking about many ground troops.
And in the beginning, they were advisors, although we found out later that some were actually using weapons in certain battles.
But that is a different situation.
Over time, people recognize that Vietnam just wasn't working out.
You know, as Walter Cronkite, the famous CBS anchor of the evening news, said after a visit to Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in January 1968, as he said in his broadcast, we've done our best.
We've tried our best.
The only way out is a negotiated settlement, and we have to satisfy ourselves with that.
Now, we're not at that stage in the war with Iran.
As it's in the sixth week, I believe you said it's somewhere in that vicinity.
That's longer than was suggested at the beginning by some people in the administration, not all of them.
I think people thought it would be over relatively quickly.
If it goes on much longer, yes, it will become a burden, maybe not as equal to affordability and prices and gas and the rest, but it will be a major factor that correlates with prices and what's happening with gas and so on.
So, I think that's a real worry for Republicans, which is why probably it won't happen.
You mentioned ground troops.
This has been fascinating to me because normally partisan identification determines these things.
And yet, a large majority of Americans, and I mean large, sometimes in the range of 80, 85, even 90% are opposed to sending ground troops.
They don't want ground troops in.
I've seen the number go as low as 7% in favor of ground troops.
So, I understand why it may need to be done in certain isolated situations, but the danger signs are all around.
If that's done and we get sucked in to a long conflict, good luck.
And the Republicans are the ones that will need the good luck.
That means that both Republicans and Democrats are disapproving that, right?
You don't get to 80 just on one party alone.
I wonder, just because you mentioned gas prices, just quickly there, a new CBS YouGov poll found that a third of Americans now predict a recession in the next year.
Gas prices are just over $4 for the national average, a gallon.
How does that factor into midterm elections?
You said that the Iran war does not outweigh affordability, but when does gas prices become a part of that conversation about affordability?
And in that sense, the Iran war is very much a part of the election already.
And we'll see what happens with the prices, whether they continue to go up, which would be frankly a disaster for the Republican Party, or if they tumble after some agreement is reached, one presumes in the next few weeks or certainly months.
We'll see what happens.
But gas prices really crystallize what Americans are concerned about in prices and affordability.
And remember, the gas prices are going to add to the food prices and really the prices of everything that has to travel from place to place.
And the airlines are adding surcharges and the various overnight mail delivery services are adding surcharges.
You better believe it adds up for average Americans, even for everybody, I would say.
So that's going to be a factor.
And again, it will cut against the Republicans if it's still existing by the fall.
One last thing on this before we turn to some calls here, Larry, is that last week the Democratic-Aligned Vote Vets Action Fund released this ad targeting GOP Congressman Derek Van Orden of Wisconsin, a retired Navy SEAL whose district crystal ball rated a toss-up.
Let's take a listen to that ad very quickly.
unidentified
Look at that gas pump.
We're paying the cost every damn day of this war in Iran.
But for Congressman Van Orden, we're not paying enough.
He's going for another $200 billion to spend on Iran.
This is the same guy who backed big cuts to VA care for vets.
Look, vets like me, they understand the cost of war.
But if we don't have the money to take care of our veterans, we damn sure can't afford another war.
So that ad said that Van Orden supports that $200 billion amount that would theoretically be asked of Congress to fund the Iran war effort, opposed VA funding that ad said.
It said we can't afford another war.
Should Americans expect more of these types of ads targeting Republicans if this war goes on much longer?
And I'm sure that the Van Orden campaign has got 10 different arguments disagreeing with phrases or sentences in that ad.
And that's the way politics works too, the debate between the candidates and sometimes the ad makers.
The point is, though, what good advertising in politics does is tap into feelings and beliefs that are already present in the electorate and especially the part of the electorate that can switch or that can be motivated to turn up that might not vote otherwise in this particular election.
And that's a powerful ad.
It will have an impact.
I'm sure there will be an answering ad, though, a response ad from the Van Orden campaign saying, you know, whatever his arguments are opposing this ad, for example, the $200 billion, that's a proposal from the Trump administration.
Maybe Van Orden has already taken a position on it.
I don't know.
But if he hasn't, then he'll point that out.
Congress hasn't worked its will on this.
And the last time I checked, they did still determine spending and taxation and other matters in the United States.
I got a quick question here, or a quick statement, then some questions for the C-SPAN audience.
When I was 17 back during the Vietnam, because you mentioned that, I had to register for the draft.
I couldn't buy alcohol nor vote, but I had to join up basically to see if I could kill or be killed by communists.
So why don't y'all just ease up on that?
If you don't want us to call you fascists, don't call us communists.
Now getting to my statement while you're here.
Yesterday, they had the show that was about more religion and politics.
And to me, politics is basically scheming among a group to get what they want.
So one of my questions is, do you know in the Bible where there's a political exception to violating the ninth commandment of bearing false witness, which politics is?
And the second question here is, personally, I'm probably one of the few people in America who believe government is working perfectly.
I don't, now stop laughing.
I don't care about, you know, that it's not that I don't want, but the government was elected in.
My concern is from November to January on the transitional period.
I'd have to say, if I can make a point before answering his question, he mentioned Vietnam, and he's absolutely correct.
I remember getting my draft card at that time, too.
I actually was in the lottery by the time I came up for a potential draft.
We had the lottery under President Nixon, and I got number 355.
It's the only time I've ever won a lottery.
But this gentleman mentioned he couldn't vote and he couldn't drink, but he could go and fight in a war and kill.
That was such a powerful argument that it produced the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Most Americans, a large majority, agreed with the point he was making and thought that young people should be able, or young men at that time, should be able to cast a ballot if they were going to go to war in a foreign conflict.
So it worked.
Politics can work under certain circumstances.
Now, he mentioned a number of items.
I think he was focusing somewhat at the end there on the transition period from the November election to, say, January 20th when the new president's sworn in, or January 3rd or so, when the new Congress is sworn in.
Is it ideal?
Well, I always tell students, you know, the British managed to do it overnight.
When they vote out their prime minister and his party, the moving van comes in the middle of the night and removes every scentilla of evidence that the other prime minister ever existed there.
So they can do it overnight.
We can't do that.
We don't have a parliamentary system and a cabinet has to be appointed.
We don't have shadow ministers.
But it's better than it used to be.
I sound like I'm just pushing the positive, but people don't remember this.
One of the things I want to bring out to especially the Christian right is we do not need, and will we not accept a theocracy, first of all?
Second of all, they keep spouting how this is this nation was born on Christian values.
If they look at their history, they will see that our forefathers, who they call George Washington, Jefferson, Madison, et cetera, you look at what they listed as their religion, Masonic.
They were Masons.
Even the ones that put down they were Christians, they were still Masons.
It was the Mason theology, kind of, in a way, which they accept all religions.
All they ask is that you have a divine creator you believe in.
And the thing is, our country was founded by people that believed in Masonic values.
So, Greg, I wonder if you have a question for Larry about it, Or the midterms of general?
unidentified
Do you agree with me or you disagree with me that actually the Masons had more influence on the, you know, starting in this country than Christianity did, because they were the leaders, Larry?
Well, I'm not going to get into the debate about Masons, and it's a long debate has gone on through American history to a certain degree, but the gentleman is correct in that we don't have a theocracy.
We didn't then.
The founders wanted to avoid it, although I must say it wasn't perfect in the beginning either.
Despite the supposed separation of church and state, there were states that had local and sometimes statewide restrictions relating to religion and serving in public office, certain religions were discriminated against.
I happen to be Catholic and I can remember in 1960 quite well everything that was said about John F. Kennedy and all the cartoons that were passed around about the Pope calling him every morning to give him his daily instructions, and all of this.
And I also.
I'm here at the University OF Virginia founded by Thomas Jefferson.
I'm living and broadcasting to you from a building designed by Thomas Jefferson, Pavilion 4 on the lawn, and Jefferson tried to appoint someone of a minority religion to the faculty at the University OF Virginia right in the beginning.
It was founded in 1819, Jefferson died in 1826 and the religious leaders in Virginia, who were of a different Protestant sect, were so outraged that someone from a minority sect was being selected that they protested endlessly and Jefferson had to let the faculty member go.
Carl from Arlington Vermont, a Democrat, you're next.
Good morning, Carl.
unidentified
Good morning.
My question for the today is, I'm a Democrat, full-blown Democrat, been Democrat for years.
Do you think the?
If we were to get the House and the Senate fingers crossed, toes crossed too, do you think Trump would get an impeachment trial and if so, what are the odds more like is it?
Is it more likely or more likely not that he'll get fully impeached?
Sure, I can give you the odds they're summarized by 0.000 that he would actually be convicted.
Now, getting impeached is a serious matter, but it's relatively simple.
You only need a majority, a simple majority of the House OF Representatives to impeach a president or other officers of the federal government.
And that could happen.
There's already a subterranean debate among Democrats about whether Trump should be impeached again for what Democrats consider to be crimes committed by Donald Trump, even in this term.
I don't know how that will turn out.
You can make a good argument either way, depending on your point of view.
It would certainly send a message to future presidents.
At the same time, it would also prove again that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to impeach and convict a president, given our party polarization.
It's just not going to happen.
So it would go to the, if Trump were impeached with a simple majority of the House on even one count, that would go to the Senate for an automatic trial presided over by the Chief Justice.
I suspect it would be a short trial because it would be obvious from the beginning that there was nowhere near the vote the extraordinary majority of the Senate needed to oust a president.
And so it's pointless to waste all that time in the Senate.
And we know it's particularly valuable in the Senate.
So, you know, on that issue, I would suggest that while it's a consideration and people will debate it, for all I know, Trump will get impeached in the next term if Democrats take over.
I question that in another way because it's guaranteed to fail, guaranteed.
One thing, since we're talking about President Trump, Larry, his approval rating among independents is 31%, with 69% who disapprove, including off-year elections.
Last year, Democrats have flipped 30 Republican seats since the start of 2025.
Republicans have not flipped one state legislative seat.
Can you talk to us about why?
Run through these numbers about independence.
And is this an anti-Trump sentiment that's kind of pervasive across the country?
Independents often call themselves independents because they dislike the Democrats because of ABC issues, and they dislike the Republicans because of XYZ issues.
However, in each election, at least the ones who vote will have to make a choice.
And so we look at these people.
They're sometimes called double haters.
I don't consider them haters.
I think double critics would be a better term.
And so we look at them to see which way they're leaning.
Well, guess what?
Trump carried the double critics in 2016.
In 2024, he carried them again.
But this year, right now, there's the largest gap that those of us in this field have ever seen.
There's a 31 percentage point advantage for Democrats among the double critics.
That should really send flares up to Republicans about what's happening under the surface.
Again, seven months to go, and these numbers can change, but the early indication there is suggestive of a strong Democratic vote.
And the special elections, what they're about is enthusiasm and energy.
Which side has the enthusiasm and energy?
And which side may be a little bit disillusioned or a little less inclined to show up at the polls because of what's going on in the world or in the country?
Well, it's perfectly obvious.
The Republicans haven't switched a single Democratic seat anywhere, whereas the Democrats have switched several dozen seats that the Republicans had in the state legislature and local offices significant local offices and so on.
Does not absolutely predict the results in November, but again, should be a flare or many flares sent up high in the air, warning Republicans about what's happening.
Well, first, I hope that I gave him an A because if he can remember my slogan after all these years, politics is a good thing.
I wish I had given him an A if I did.
Maybe I can still change his transcript.
I'll look into it, but he'll have to write me a letter.
In any event, thank you for your comments.
I appreciate it very much.
Yes, we are the latest in the re-redistricting gala that's going on throughout America.
It started in Texas when Trump, and by the way, I've had a lot of Republicans in Virginia tell me, even senior Republicans say, what was he thinking?
What were the people around him thinking?
Did they believe that the Democrats wouldn't respond to the effort in Texas to grab five Democratic U.S. House seats?
And the answer, of course, is no.
So we've had some states like Texas and there are others redistrict to give Republicans additional seats in the upcoming Congress.
And we have had states that are Democratic, starting with California.
And now it's reached Virginia, trying to do the same thing to even out the playing field nationally.
Now, I've got to tell you, I'm opposed to re-redistricting everywhere.
On the other hand, I think it's unfair to expect one party to unilaterally disarm.
That's why it was such a terrible idea to begin with.
That's why I regret tremendously that President Trump did this, because it is increasing polarization and fighting between the parties.
And that's the last thing we need.
So in Virginia, Virginia is not California.
It does lean Democratic.
The Democrats have been carrying Virginia presidentially since President Obama did in his first election in 2008, which is a complete switch from the prior heavily Republican tendency of Virginia.
And so you have to give at least an edge to this referendum.
Now, how much of an edge?
There was a recent survey in the Washington Post that had it relatively close.
I think it was five points among those likely to vote.
Among all registered voters, there was a nine percentage point difference in favor of the re-redistricting.
So you have to give it an edge, but you know, that's close enough so that even between now and April 21st, you could have a switch.
Many people are voting by mail.
That's what I did.
And by the way, male voting is completely safe.
This is the most ridiculous debate ever.
And both parties use it and like it.
So we'll see what happens between now and April 21st.
But I would say it's favored, but not by all that much.
God bless the people who served there and made the sacrifices for that mess.
I've got to tell you, I've learned that over the years, when a country invades another country on their soil, they always, always, without question, underestimate the resilience of the country they're invading.
We're against that right now.
I can give you Ukraine and Russia, Russia, and Afghanistan, Korea.
I mean, King George III, if he had to think over it, he said, we shouldn't have invaded the college.
Just give them the dadgum freedom and be done with it.
I mean, it's always that way.
They always put up a good fight, which typically we think we can go in and take over, and all of a sudden we have a prolonged conflict.
That's going to hurt the Republicans, I think.
Because I think it will be a prolonged conflict.
I think the imminent threat was not there, just like George Bush's weapons of mass destruction when he forced Pullman Powell to go make a case for the war in Iraq.
By the way, Brent Scotland told Bush, the senior, don't go in, don't follow, don't follow those troops in Iraq.
It's going to upset the region.
What did George Lesser do with exactly that?
And we've had a mess ever since.
Okay, real quickly, gas prices.
I was a logistics manager until I retired.
Gas prices affect everything.
It runs through the economy like a galaxy.
First, very first thing it hits, and I know this firsthand because I used to have to deal with contracts, fuel surcharges, which affect the cost of everything.
It affects the cost of manufacturing.
So you say, well, I'm just buying paper.
Well, the people who produce the paper for your office job, it costs them more.
The people who, FedEx is going to charge you more to ship it.
Everything is going to cost.
The guy that comes in and changes the light bulbs at night in the factory, I got to charge you more because it's costing me more to buy the light bulbs, and I got to pay my people more.
They're asking for raises.
It's just nuts.
It's racist through the economy.
Real quickly about politics.
Okay, you're from Virginia.
The two-party system we're trapped into is a mess.
He was my congressman for a number of years and was in the state senate before that.
But look, here's the problem.
And I've heard this all my life or adult life, and I suspect most people who are listening or watching have.
We need a third party.
We've got to have a third party.
I want to vote for someone who's not a Democrat or Republican.
And very occasionally, very occasionally, these independents or third-party candidates can win.
But it's even rarer than the blue moon.
And that's because the two major parties are so entrenched in the campaign finance laws, in the electoral laws, and for the reason the gentleman mentioned, which is an incumbent from a political party, especially if that party is in the majority, can probably get some goodies for the state or the district.
And of course, that adds a point or two or three in an election.
And many of our elections are very close.
So every now and then, it can happen and change things.
Ross Perot is the one that I'll always remember in 1992, who ran a strange campaign.
You know, he dropped out in early summer, and then he came back in in early October, and he still got 19% of the vote, more than any independent has ever gotten other than Teddy Roosevelt, who was a third-party candidate, but had been president for nearly eight years.
So Perot proved you could do it.
Now, he spent $60 million of his own money.
He was a billionaire.
He also asked for people to put skin in the game.
Everybody who supported him was told to send him $5.
And people who never thought they would be sending $5 to a billionaire did so.
He got a lot of money that way as well.
So you need a groundswell.
You need a populist candidate.
You need dissatisfaction with the two major parties, which you had in 1992.
And even then, while you can make history get more votes than any independent's ever gotten before, you can't come close to winning.
It's 19% of the vote, and Ross Perot didn't get even one electoral vote.
So I understand what you're saying.
I admire you for making that argument, but I'd suggest you move on to another cause because you don't want to waste your life.
I don't think that's going to get me in trouble with anybody.
But look, the gentleman is making an important point about corruption, and nobody can dispute what he said.
There's way too much corruption from the White House to the courthouse, and it seems to get worse with each passing day.
And we have to root it out.
And also, we the people have an obligation to do our research, to do our voter education, to find out who these candidates are in conjunction with the press, whether you dislike them or like them.
You must like some of them.
You must get your information from somewhere.
And you have to elevate it in your list of issues when you're deciding who to vote for and who to vote against, because that's the only way we're going to have change in elections is if people, the voters, the electorate, does a lot more research and works with groups that uncover unethical activity in government.
And there are quite a few of them, ProPublica and the various ethics groups.
You can Google that.
And they try to give us information and people don't pay attention.
We need to pay closer attention.
We also may need more than occasionally to abandon whatever our party label is to vote against even our party or vote against the candidate of our party if that person is shown to be corrupt.
Brittany from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a Democrat.
Good morning, Brittany.
unidentified
Good morning.
So I have a question, and my question is, do we think that some of these seat changes are being affected by the American people's views on politicians' views about how they handled the Epstein files?
And what I mean by that is, do we believe that people are voting based off who's complacent in trying to like sweep them under or not talk about them anymore?
Do we think that people have watched how something so important kind of got hushed and it created a fear in believing most politicians are honorable to be in charge of the laws and decisions of our nation about all things?
My question is, do we think the handling of the Epstein files is trickling into, you know, who's getting to be replaced in these seats and furthermore?
Well, the answer is that it is a factor with a minority of voters.
And you could really split them into two.
There are a lot of MAGA voters, a lot of Trump supporters who have felt very unhappy, very upset with the way the Epstein controversy and scandal has been treated over the years.
This has dragged on for years and years, but particularly with the release of the files, which is still, I believe, not complete.
And who knows what was destroyed along the way?
You know, I've looked at that in a number of controversies, and sometimes you'll never find out because little fires were held here and there back when they had paper.