CSPAN - Washington Journal Larry Sabato
Aired: 2026-04-06
Duration: 16:59


=== Competitive Midterm Seats at Stake (10:06) ===

[00:00:00]  Harvard Institute of Politics.
[00:00:01]  Watch that conversation live starting at 7 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
[00:00:05]  C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
[00:00:12]  In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together.
[00:00:16]  According to a new MAGIT research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced.
[00:00:23]  28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate.
[00:00:29]  Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides.
[00:00:35]  Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source.
[00:00:39]  No commentary, no agenda, just democracy.
[00:00:43]  Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks.
[00:00:48]  Who's your representative?
[00:00:49]  Who sits on which committee?
[00:00:51]  Where do you even start?
[00:00:52]  C-SPAN's official congressional directory.
[00:00:55]  Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place.
[00:00:59]  The Congressional Directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support C-SPAN's nonprofit operations.
[00:01:07]  Get your congressional directory by scanning the QR code or at c-spanshop.org.
[00:01:13]  Stay informed.
[00:01:14]  Stay engaged.
[00:01:17]  Welcome back.
[00:01:18]  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.
[00:01:29]  Larry, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
[00:01:33]  Here.
[00:01:34]  All right, you are chief of the Sabado's Crystal Ball, which features detailed election analysis.
[00:01:40]  Just first start, what is your current outlook on the midterm elections?
[00:01:45]  Jasmine, we have a great team here.
[00:01:47]  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.
[00:01:56]  And we have a lot of student interns who work with us too.
[00:02:00]  What we do is gather as much information as we can about each race.
[00:02:05]  I tell people right up front, so I hope they listen, that there are seven months to go.
[00:02:12]  So the numbers that I'm about to suggest can change.
[00:02:16]  Seven months is a long time, particularly in the Trump era, right?
[00:02:21]  He's making news every half hour on the half hour, and sometimes it's all night long.
[00:02:26]  So you never know what's going to happen.
[00:02:28]  And seven months is a long time.
[00:02:31]  So the fundamentals I'm going to suggest are those that exist now and probably, probably will exist in the fall.
[00:02:38]  This being a midterm election, inevitably, inevitably, the out-of-power party is going to gain seats.
[00:02:47]  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.
[00:03:00]  Otherwise, the out-of-power party gains seats.
[00:03:03]  Now, sometimes they don't gain very many.
[00:03:06]  It depends on the circumstances, depends on how many vacancies there are, depends on lots of things.
[00:03:13]  The economy almost always is a factor.
[00:03:15]  And sometimes foreign wars, foreign wars have played a part in a number of these elections.
[00:03:21]  So the odds are that Democrats will gain seats in the House, maybe gain seats in the Senate.
[00:03:29]  That is much less certain.
[00:03:30]  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.
[00:03:38]  And some people guess well.
[00:03:40]  And I salute them for that.
[00:03:42]  But the seats that are up in the Senate make the task for Democrats very difficult.
[00:03:50]  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.
[00:04:00]  But it's still a tough road to hoe, or it's a tall mountain, a high mountain to climb.
[00:04:08]  The House is another situation entirely.
[00:04:11]  There, you have enough seats easily to make the difference between Democrats and Republicans because there are only a few seats separating them.
[00:04:21]  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.
[00:04:34]  So it's very close.
[00:04:35]  Just a few seats would make a difference.
[00:04:37]  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.
[00:05:02]  I mean, it's like the Pollet Bureau in Russia.
[00:05:05]  And I'm not calling our wonderful congressman communists.
[00:05:11]  Don't start writing me about that.
[00:05:13]  But I'm simply saying competition has been bled out of the system.
[00:05:17]  So the changes may be more modest than some are suggesting or some are hoping for or some are fearing.
[00:05:25]  But underlying all of this is the fact that competition is less serious and less intense than it once was.
[00:05:34]  And I think that's a shame.
[00:05:36]  We have so many solid red states and so many solid blue states.
[00:05:41]  And you have, you know, six, seven, eight purple competitive states.
[00:05:47]  And so the elections are over before they start.
[00:05:50]  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.
[00:05:57]  And that's a shame.
[00:05:58]  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.
[00:06:16]  You rated that only 13 GOP held seats in one Democratic seat, one Democratic seat.
[00:06:22]  Those are the toss-up races.
[00:06:24]  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 a few amount of toss-up seats on the GOP side and the one toss-up seat on the Democratic side?
[00:06:39]  Exactly right.
[00:06:40]  Exactly right.
[00:06:41]  And I would expand it beyond that to this extent.
[00:06:44]  Those 14 seats are the most likely to switch, assuming there are switches, and I think there will be.
[00:06:50]  But you can see another 20 or so that are competitive, most held by Republicans, some held by Democrats.
[00:06:59]  They could switch if there's a wave.
[00:07:02]  And you can't see a wave until you get close to the shore.
[00:07:07]  And we won't get close to the shore until September and October.
[00:07:11]  So if there's a wave, yes, you can go beyond the really close competitive districts.
[00:07:17]  But isn't that a shame, really, that we only have that few seats that are highly competitive?
[00:07:24]  That's not the way democracies are supposed to run.
[00:07:27]  Now, I want to get into a few more numbers here, but before we do, I want to invite our viewers to join in on the conversation.
[00:07:33]  We're talking about midterm elections.
[00:07:35]  We have the expert Larry Sabato here with us this morning.
[00:07:39]  Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
[00:07:44]  Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
[00:07:48]  Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
[00:07:52]  You can also send us a text message, 202-748-8003, and just include your first name, city, and state.
[00:08:00]  And I'll remind folks that you should only be calling in once every 31 days.
[00:08:06]  So, Larry, 21 House Democrats and 37 Republicans have announced that they will not seek reelection.
[00:08:14]  That's basically one of the highest retirement rates at this point in the cycle in recent history.
[00:08:20]  Can you kind of give us a comparison as how unusual this is, just this amount of turnover via retirements?
[00:08:27]  Yes, there have been years in American history when it was considerably larger than that, but you are absolutely correct.
[00:08:34]  This is one of the highest numbers.
[00:08:36]  I would caution people, though.
[00:08:38]  I've had many people write in or call or whatever and say, doesn't this suggest a major turnover in Congress?
[00:08:47]  No, look at the seats.
[00:08:49]  A majority, probably a clear majority of the seats of those retiring are either safe or likely for the same party.
[00:09:00]  So the successors will, in the vast majority of cases, be either R or D, the same letter that you have right now.
[00:09:10]  Now, why are people leaving?
[00:09:12]  You know, everybody criticizes politicians and congressmen and so on.
[00:09:16]  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.
[00:09:30]  It's exhausting.
[00:09:32]  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.
[00:09:39]  And my family is worse than I am.
[00:09:42]  They're the ones really wearing out and suggesting it's time to go to greener pastures.
[00:09:47]  So I think that's more of a factor.
[00:09:50]  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.
[00:10:04]  That is outrageous.

=== Ground Troops and Political Fatigue (06:53) ===

[00:10:06]  These people must be prosecuted.
[00:10:08]  They have to be found and prosecuted.
[00:10:10]  You can't run a democracy when people fear for their lives simply for representing their districts and casting their votes.
[00:10:19]  Now, I want to turn to the conflict in Iran because obviously that's dominating headlines today.
[00:10:25]  And we enter into its six-week.
[00:10:29]  But polls show that Americans oppose the president's handling of the Iranian conflict.
[00:10:34]  They're also opposed to the idea of troops on the ground.
[00:10:37]  And the president has been basically resolute in his approach to Iran the last week.
[00:10:42]  We've seen him over the last weekend kind of escalating some of these threats.
[00:10:46]  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?
[00:11:02]  Of course, we know that they've rejected war power votes in the past.
[00:11:06]  So how does that figure?
[00:11:08]  It is definitely a factor.
[00:11:09]  It's not as important as the economy unless it's a very hot war.
[00:11:14]  And you mentioned the critical factor, whether there are ground troops.
[00:11:18]  You know, you're talking to a guy whose formative years, teenage, and 20s were during Vietnam.
[00:11:25]  And that's a perfect example.
[00:11:26]  Now, it started out reasonably popular under Kennedy, for example, and even the beginning of the Johnson administration because the numbers were small.
[00:11:37]  We're talking about many ground troops.
[00:11:40]  In the beginning, they were advisors, although we found out later that some were actually using weapons in certain battles.
[00:11:47]  But that is a different situation.
[00:11:50]  Over time, people recognize that Vietnam just wasn't working out.
[00:11:56]  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.
[00:12:13]  We've tried our best.
[00:12:14]  The only way out is a negotiated settlement, and we have to satisfy ourselves with that.
[00:12:20]  Now, we're not at that stage in the war with Iran.
[00:12:25]  As it's in the sixth week, I believe you said it's somewhere in that vicinity.
[00:12:29]  That's longer than was suggested at the beginning by some people in the administration, not all of them.
[00:12:37]  I think people thought it would be over relatively quickly.
[00:12:40]  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.
[00:12:59]  So I think that's a real worry for Republicans, which is why probably it won't happen.
[00:13:04]  You mentioned ground troops.
[00:13:06]  This has been fascinating to me because normally partisan identification determines these things.
[00:13:13]  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.
[00:13:25]  They don't want ground troops in.
[00:13:28]  I've seen the number go as low as 7% in favor of ground troops.
[00:13:32]  So I understand why it may need to be done in certain isolated situations, but the danger signs are all around.
[00:13:41]  If that's done and we get sucked in to a long conflict, good luck.
[00:13:47]  And the Republicans are the ones that will need the good luck.
[00:13:51]  Right.
[00:13:51]  And 80% disapproval.
[00:13:52]  That means that both Republicans and Democrats are disapproving that, right?
[00:13:56]  You don't get to 80 just on one party alone.
[00:14:00]  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.
[00:14:09]  Gas prices are just over $4 for the national average, a gallon.
[00:14:15]  How does that factor into midterm elections?
[00:14:17]  You said that the Iran war does not outweigh affordability, but when does gas prices become a part of that conversation about affordability?
[00:14:25]  Well, it already is.
[00:14:27]  And in that sense, the Iran war is very much a part of the election already.
[00:14:32]  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.
[00:14:50]  But gas prices really crystallize what Americans are concerned about in prices and affordability.
[00:14:57]  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.
[00:15:05]  And the airlines are adding surcharges and the various overnight mail delivery services are adding surcharges.
[00:15:13]  You better believe it adds up for average Americans, even for everybody, I would say.
[00:15:18]  So that's going to be a factor.
[00:15:21]  And again, it will cut against the Republicans if it's still existing by the fall.
[00:15:26]  Getting back to my seven months point.
[00:15:30]  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.
[00:15:49]  Let's take a listen to that ad very quickly.
[00:15:52]  Look at that gas pump.
[00:15:53]  We're paying the cost every damn day of this war in Iran.
[00:15:57]  But for Congressman Van Orden, we're not paying enough.
[00:16:01]  He's going for another $200 billion to spend on Iran.
[00:16:05]  This is the same guy who backed big cuts to VA care for vets.
[00:16:09]  Look, vets like me, we understand the cost of war.
[00:16:13]  But if we don't have the money to take care of our veterans, we damn sure can't afford another war.
[00:16:19]  Call Van Orden on it.
[00:16:22]  So that ad, it 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.
[00:16:35]  It said we can't afford another war.
[00:16:37]  Should Americans expect more of these type of ads targeting Republicans if this war goes on much longer?
[00:16:44]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:16:45]  And they'll be tougher than that one.
[00:16:48]  And look, that's the way politics rolls.
[00:16:51]  I'm sure that the Van Orden campaign has got 10 different arguments disagreeing with phrases or sentences in that