on q&a here wide-ranging interviews with those who are making things happen. in the about books podcast takes you behind-the-scenes of the nonfiction book publishing industry. find all of our podcasts by downloading the free c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span.org/podcasts. c-span's campaign024 coverage campaign begins with presidential primaries and caucuses. where the first votes e cast in the presidential election along with candidate speeches and results. the iowa caucus and new

hampshire primary, campaign 2024 on c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. a healthy democracy doesn't just look like this, it looks like this. where americancan see democracy at work get informed, straight from the source. on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capital to wherever you are. is is what democracy looks like, c-an powered by cable. "washington urnal," coinues. host: the best way to kick off an election year is to welcome larry sabato at the university of virginia center politics.

what can the crystal ball tell us about the election that will take place 307 days from today? guest: i think we can say there will be a great deal of chaos. we have chaos in nonelection yes. if it turns out to be biden versus tromp, we will be looking at a third-party candidate because depending on who they are and how many ate palisade get on. just jumping i doesn't mean all that much. it depends on wheryou get on the ballot and in some places it's not that easy. we will be looking at third-party candidates very carefully. as to everything else, i would guarantee you that there are all kind of major events we can even imagine today. although the voting begins in

many places in late september. host: if it is biden and tromp, on the replican side the caucuses begin this month. what are h chances at this point? how overwhelmingly the favorite is he? guest: he is the clear favorite. you can underline clear many times. the polls often very far ahead in the contest to come. peop say well those contes will be dramatically affected by those in iowa and nehampshire. may be but not necsarily. iowa is in predictive of who will be the republican nominee. the democrats are no longer using iowa as the jumping off

point so we don't discuss them. and new hampshire is more predictive than iowa historically. but they also have not had a perfect record. all 50 states get to vote and sometimes the decision is made when the final primaries are held in early june. you don't want to rule out any reasonable possibilities. it's extremely early days of the election year. host: donald trump is 5 points ahead of his next opponent. which opponent interest you more , ron desantis or nikki haley? guest: between those t i would say nikki haley has had more montum. at least in new hampshire. the governor there, chris sununu who is retiring but has

maintained his popularity. he is strongly supportive of nikki haley. she is still not leading donald trump, she is 10, 12 points behind. in iowa, brent desantis -- ron desantis is popular with kim reynolds and she has been pumping arms for him. he does t want nikki haley finishing second and ia and winninnew hampshire. that wou be the worst combination for him. then there is chrichristie. he has that everything on new hampshire. and by the way, people need to remember, polls often change

dramatically in the last 48-72 hours. sometimes they don't catch the last minute trend. but tha's very important in early contests because those participants in iowa and in new hampshire are inclined to surprise us. i think they enjoy suppressing us. i think they also enjoy taking the position outsi of iowa. if you view th position with the historical record. and ybe we shouldn't. maybe we should turn the page an have a whole new chapter. host: at the outset of the

republican primary there is some thought that the non-tromp portion ofhe party would consolidate around the candidate. it that going to happen? is there any sign that is happening? is there anyresident to that happening? guest: it should've already happened. back in 2016hen he won the nomination he had 16 opponen. there were 17 at one point an not many of them dropped out in the first half othe primary. that is what gave him the nomination he had a very solid base with 38% of the vote in the competitive part of the primars and thawas more than enough in e field that was

chopped into pieces. this still applies. is is very important the democrats and republicans have a different theory of nomination. democrats are atickler for representation so if the is a real contestt takes longer to consolidate the majority of delegates you would need to get the nomition and i don't think that applies this year. because biden is the incumbent and will probably win handily. on the republican side they still have winner ke all and that mns relatively qckly, you can have a candida get a majority of the delegates and you could certainly have thought by the time the votes are counted on super tuesday on marc the fifth.

i believe there are 15 states that are electinthat day and i don't want to leave out american samoa. you have a lot of delegates early which allows the candidate to wrap it upf the candidate is winning solidly. you look at the two parties and you realize there are very different conditions prevailing t the substance of their nominating processs very different. you haveo nominate each party on its terms. host: larry sabato founder and chief of the crystal ball at university of virgin. for republicans (202) 748-8001 for democrats (202) 748-8000, for independents (202) 748-8002. let's assume it's joe biden, is

the biden coalition in 2024 at the same as 2020? est: no. we have a long time to go. an eternity to the start of vong unt septemb. right now, biden is having problems with minoriti, problems with the youth vote because of the middle east situation. he is seen as being much more pro-israel young people tend to be more pro-palestinian. the coition this not the same but it is also true that the incumbent president has an enormous number of opportunities during the election year to reconstitute his coalition or at

least the st majority of it and i throw in independent and third-party candidates. if they can g on ballots o states that are competitive. the tragedy ofodern america we can call 40 states. you will have candidates campaigning in 10 states. georgia, arizona, wisconsin and maybe new hampshire nevada is very close, it could be michigan. if we don't have competive

politics. our system is state based, that is a shame. we used to have much more competitive politics and far more states. one election i have studied a lot is the race betweekennedy and nixon. you had more than halff the states considered to be coetitive in up for grabs. both candidates were erywhere in the matter. it doesn't anymore. candidates will go to the final determinative states to earn money. th will sk out money fm california but california is not competitive. host: there are lots of calls for you this morning. we will start in louisville,

kentucky, on the line for democrats. caller: it's good to talk you. a couple of things here. number one, and 1988 there was no elector for west virginia that road in michael dukakis as vice president and he lost an electoral vote the. and vice president gore lost an electoral vote in 2000 and in 2016, hillary clinton lost six or seven unfaithful electors and donald trump lost a couple. those could have an impact on his win. ere is a very real possibility that if the democrats win all the states that won the last

four elections were looking at 269 tie and i was hoping you could comment on that. guest: that's very good question. a lot of parts to it. we can talk about electoral college reform and i would like to see reform. if you can't abolish the electoral college there are ways to reform it to ma it more representative and prevent thankless electors because they can make a difference. it is so arrogant from an ector to put his or her view ahead of millions of people in their state. that have taken the time to vote an express themselves and arbitrarily they will vote for anything that comes into their head for a ratnale that doesn't have any power to it.

2000 was important because bush had 271 and you need to 70. he did not have any faithless, is easy to imagine a circumstance where even one a lot better and very close race could determine the presidency based on their win. that is insane. but that is the system we've got. let me comment briefly on 269, 260 nine. this is a ticking time bomb in the constitution and most people in the united states have no idea that if we have a tie in the electoral college. there are lots of reasonable ways to happen, it is going to happen in some future year.

then it goes to the house of representatives in each state gets one vote. california would have the same vote as vermont. rhode island would have the same vote as texas or florida. it's actually worse than that. the delegation tries to resolve based on eir party idea who they will vote for. there are a number of states that have a tide delegation. they probably won't be able to agree. that entire state will be disenfranchised. you have to get 26 states out of the 52 agree on the winter. usually that favors republicans ey usually have more delegations because more of the states with a single member of

the house are republican states. there are lots of disadvantages to the system including legitimacy of the person who is actually elected. you would think everybody would be concerned about that. we so need to change pieces of our system. we need to reform them and i will ctainly die without them being reform. i don't see any prospect of this being done since it requires a constitutional amendment to change the electoral college. a change in the constitution to change the tie vote. we are stuck with these things because we are so divided. you have to have a near consensus to get any constitutional amendment through. host: this is tom, a republican.

caller: a couple of minutes ago you spoke where early voting starts as earl as september. guest: late september. caller: i don't understand how that is possible because they start counting these votes and find out who is ahead here and there and by the time they get to california, they can do anything they want. and it looks like that is what has been happening? . guest: this is been happening gradually for years and there are various ways to vote early. we have always had absentee

ballots and people who are gng to be away on election day could get an absentee ballot to vote. if you came under one of the categories passed by your state and allowed to cast an absentee ballot. when started out in politics in the 1960s you would have maybe 2% supplied by absentee ballots and at that time, you were not even allowed to open the absentee ballots until polls are closed on election day so there was no way to know what the count was. that is still the case of many states but in other states,hey will allow the early voting totals to be opened or counted

privately. does that ever think out? i can't think of an example where it has but i also don't know if someone is making a call to another person. during the pandemic we had a tremendous increase in the number of absentee voting, early voting. at this point, many voters, proportionally older voters have gotten used to voting early. most of the early voting comes int that last week or 10 days. but like i said in some place it starts in late september. but folks trickle in, not a

whole t of votes are coming in and there is a reason for that. we are divided by party and most people know who they're going to for already. but if you vote early, you are missing a big chunk of the campaign. if revelations occur, new information. if you want the whole story before you vote you should probably wait until election day. if you don't and you are a strong democrat or republican, i guess it doesn't matter much. host: oyster bay, new york, ronald, a republican. call: yes, good morning. greetis from oyster bay. teddy roosevt's former home. i recently saw the film 2000

mules to see people dpping in drop boxes in the middle of the night, enormous numbers of votes and t the media say the election w fair? how absurd. guest: i understand what the gentlemais saying. millions of people believe it. there was a blowout this morning saying only 3 of republins believe that biden was legitimately elected. i happen to believe was an everybodin my field whether ey are republicans and democrats believe there was not widespre voting fraud.

that particular film has been discredited by a wide variety of soces of rious ideological backgrounds. i would ve relied too heavily on that film. having said that, nobody can be everywhere, nobody can examine all the ballots. but i still say the 2020 election was a fair election and it produced a winner. you y not like the winter. democrats dinot like the winter when it was george w. bush. he lost the popular vote. he won the vote after supreme courdecision. at the time we said every country needs a president. an oldine from bob dole but w

have changed. we are much more partisan of ople are more except about more things and that contributes heavily to the situation we all face in 2024. i hope and pray that this year is peaceful. that is how small the democratic nations should conduct election. ho: less than 20 minutes left with larry sabato. there is a bookstore in oyster bay, theodore's books run by former congressman pete israel. we have covered events there. it makes me wonder which books your reading in the new year? guest: i am at the age where i have to reread books to remember them. at this point i really do go

back so books that are statistically sound and present basic statistics. some of us who are older need to refresh our memories. normally, i enjoy reading history. if ftion writers depended on me they would be starving because i spend all of my time reading history and nonfiction. and i don't watch any television except for documentaries and news shows. that shows you how boring i am. host: fran on twitter rights and, does your guest have a

handle on the polls? how do pollsters believe t polls? guest: you are right to question them. almost everyone does now because so many of the polls were wrong in 2016 and 2018. there were a lot of mistakes in 2020. i am going to go way out on a limb and suggest we could have mistakes for 2024.

everyby waits for data to hang their hat on something. i would pay a lot less attention to them. i do read them and i learn from them but i certainly don't consider them predictive the pool we have had about the020 election are worthless when it comes to predicting election results in 2024. we can look at the voting history of states and do a better job the polls do. all i can say to you is read them, pay attention to them to a certain degree and then go through the rest of your day and remember them. host: from washington dc, an

independent, good morning. caller: last presidential election i couldn't vote for either party. when it comes to banng the president. using the 14th amendment whout a conviction, you are playing a dangerous game. you are talking about suspending democracy. let's go after biden who was obviously senile. should be forced to te a mandatory examinati. on the second thing about legitimacy, when you go back and look at the bush administration. my brother was looking up florida at the time.

they were blocking the road so democrats could not get to the polls. and they bred 60,000 people from voting. guest: again, this gentleman remembers a great deal. i don't want to talk about any particular election but are there shenanigans that have happened in elections? i don't think the years widespread as people believe but it's important to pay attention. i don't agree with a lot of conspiracy theories about 2020 but i do think there is one positive result from all the attention paid to 2020 and other elections.

people are paying close attention and they should. the best cure for those shenanigans is sunlight. sunlight disinfects and the more people watch and see, the better it is. although you should not imagine things that are not there. that is one point that i think is very important to me. we have to trust one another, may be trust but verify. that could apply to everything in politics and to lie. the gentleman made some valid points there and i encourage people to pay attention. host: the 14th amendnt in efforts to keep trump off the llot, what is your take on that effort? guest: nobody can predict the

supreme court, i would rather predict elections. assuming they take it up and i assume they will. they certainly dated 2000 with bush v gore. if thedo take it up and give us a definitive ruling as posed to sidestepping it. i suspect they are going to say for the primaries that those who qualify according to the party rules should affect be on the ballot. if you take the 14 amendment, section three. a plain reading of that section. host: i can read it right now. section three, no person shall be a senator or presentative to congress or lecter president

or vice president or hold any officerny state who has taken an oath as a member of congress or a member of an state legislature to support the constitution of the united states having engaged in insurrectionr rebellion against the state or given comfort to the enemy thereof. guest: to me, that plain reading says that trump engaged in insurrection. it doesn't say he has to be convicted. alsooesn't mention the president specically but there is in the debate that occurred in the senate at the time that this came up in 1857, 1858 right after the civil war.

this question was asked by one senator to another senator following the amendmenand he said, of course the president is included. th specically mentied presidential electors. even though i think does apply to trump. i think it is better tt he is on the ballot. governor gavin newsom, who was hardly nonpartisan, he is a democrat. he responded just last weekhat we defeat candites at the polls we don't take them off the ballot. i can argue with that based on what just interpreted from section three of amendment 14. if you do not like trump it's better to defeat himt the polls and have millions of

people participate in e decision rather than allow a small number of elites make that decision for everyone else. host: john in syracuse, new york. caller: we have 50 states in this country in 10 states are going to determine who was going to be the president. this system suck the electoral college was created to be something different than it is today. 10 states are going to decide who is president and we all know the tribe is not going to win the popular ve and he will weasel through the electoral college. we see what has happened with abortion, overturning roe v.

wade. a lot of the conservative right states made their position. it is a loser for republicans. my thing is trump cannot pick a man for vice president because it will look like two white guys ganging up on women. to me, he has to pick a female for vice president. i think it will be elise stefanik that i think it will definitely be a woman. what do you think? guest: that is the prevailing, dominant theory especially because of abortion, because of the public outrage about the overturning of roe v. wade that republicans are at a disadvantage.

the elections of 2022, 2023 strongly suggests. democrats did more than expected. at is to speculation but there was some reporting that trump was asking associates about nikki haley is vice president. although he decided somethinin the morning and it's different by the afternoon so who knows? in general, i don't know who specifically he would take. it does make a lot of sense as you ve explained. host: we have an indendent, next. good morning. caller: why doesn't the media stressed the most days with absentee ballots, after in

person votes have been counted are in boxes. you can lookhat up on your phone. they can access those votes until the polls close. you can see every state that has that process, most states. just wanted your opinion on that. these people think they have rolled all tse votes and after the polls close but that is what they do. guest: just to relieve some of the stress and pressure on the election workersho have been treated terrib the last few years. they are volunteers and those who are not work for tiny sums

of money. they do theork of democracy for all of us. we have to treat them better. in order to increase public confidence, you have thave what states already have witches observers fr all major candidates watching each step watching right there in the room. most states do it already,t should always include the process yohave descred which is taking the ballot out of the envelope, watching to make sure no one is looking how they actually voted. it is folded over so you can't immediaty determine who voted for who. i think public observation by advocates for the candidate w are reasonable. you n't want people inheir

screaming th someone is cheating when they are not. but you need to have peopl there so the public will have confidence. in every place that is reasonable you wilhave people saying we don't know who has one but everything they have done is according to theooks and i didn't see any particular bias to one side of the other. that is ideal and increases confidence in the system whoever wins just a few minutes lt. host: we have a lookt the hoe and senate election, what are you looking for? guest: in the house, the last two coresses have been controlled by a handful of seeds and odds are this will be relatively close. how close we don't know.

the presidential election can have a major impact on o party of the other. in the senate, a frienof mine was saying the other day, the republicans will clearly win the senate. they only have to pi up one c. two seats in order to control fullin the republins have all the advantages. they almost have an tomatic turnover in west virginia. a republican is going to win that seat. wisconsin would be a competitive see, montana and ohio more so.

they areight at the top of the list after west virginia and arizona which could have a three-way race if senator sinema runs for reelectio you have a handful of seeds and almost all of them democratic. here's the problem with that predicon, it wathe exactly the prediction made in 2020. and in 2022 when the republicans were supposed to take over the senate the democrats won that seat. we tried to pretend that they are more predictable than they are. another reason to pay attention. just as you ca't predict the polls you can predict elections.

in most of all, vote. host: to hear more from larry sa bato, a great follow on twitter. we appreciate your time sir. guest: i enjoyedt so mh hn, inc. you so mu and hpy new year. host: we will be back here tomorrow and until then, have a great tuesday. ♪

watch the hous l c-span, the senate c-span2, follow all of our congressional coverage live or at your convenience at c-span now, our free mobile deo app. >> c-span's studentcam documentary competition is back, celebrating 20 years, with this year's theme, looking forward while considering the past. we are asking middle- and high- school students to create a video addressing one of these

questions -- in the next 20 years, what is the most important chan you would like to see in america, over the past 20 years, what has been the most iortant change in america? as we do each year, we are giving away 100,000 dollars in total prices with the grand prize of $5,000, and every teacher o has the participate in thiyear's competition has the opportunity to sha the portion of an additional $50,000. the competition deadline is friday, january 19, 2024. visit our website at studenam.org. nonfiction book lovers, c-span has a number of podcasts for you. listen to best-selling nonfiction others and influential interviewe on the "after words" podcast, and on "q&a," nonfiction authors who are making things happen. plus "footnote" fascinati

authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. and behind the scenes of the nonfiction book publishing industrywith insider interviews, industry updates, and best seller lists. find all of our podcasts by downloading the free c-span now app, or wherever you get your podcasts, and in our website, c-span.org/podcasts. c-span.org is c-span's online store. browse to the latest collection of products, apparel, home decor, and accessories. something for every c-span fandom and every purchase supports our nonprofit operation . shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> a healthy democracy doe't just look like this. it looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work, where citizensre truly

informed a public thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span -- unfiltered, unbiased, word for word, fro the nation's capitol to wherever you are. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, pored by cable. >> cing up, chris christie response to fellow presidential candidate ni haley's remarks on the contributing factors of e civil war, during whh she exuded slavery. he also takes questions on the hunter biden investigation and s vision for the nation. mr. christy's remarks came during a campaign stop in seabrook, new hampshire. [applause] >> thank you. i am going to use this not because we need to but because they want me to so we will make sure that we do that. thank you all. thank you all for taking the t