here's what we have coming up for you live today on c-span. > we will bring you the new hampshire governor debate. that begins at noon eastern. then live coverage as president biden gets his covid-19 booster shot while encouraging more americans to get inoculated ahead of the winter season. this afternoon at 4:30 eastern, the israeli president will talk about israeli-arab relations. >> c-span is more unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more in

a including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. host: with two weeks to go before the midterms, larry is the director of virginia's center for politics. what is the crystal ball telling you now about who controls the house and senate come the 118th congress? >> the odds heavily favor the republicans to take control of the house of representatives.

there have been 19 midterm elections since world war two and in 17 of the 19 the party out of power gained seats in the house. you can argue forever about how many seats it could be but whether whether it is one assumes the republican party can reorganize the house. you can argue whether it is 15 or 20 or 25. whatever. so the house, i think that is probable for the republicans. the senate, we still go back and forth almost every day depending on what is happening. it is very close. if something happens even this late, that could spend the election to the democrats or away from the democrats because they are the incumbent party barely in the senate. then it will determine the

senate until a vacancy or vacancies occur. that is the one to watch. there are, depending on how you count, five or six or seven seats in play. some are the next level and potentially could be in play but do not seem to be at the moment. timmy, the most interesting races are the governors races. there are quite a few competitive contests from coast-to-coast. host: with two weeks to go, what are you watching for? what most interests you and this final 14 day sprint? guest: i remember so many of them. people assume there's just one big, giant october surprise that changes everything. occasionally, that happens.

this is the 60th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis, which occurred in october of 1962, right before jennifer kennedy -- john f. kennedy's only midterm election. it did help the democrats. there was virtually no change in congress. held the house by a wide margin. the senate as well. i think republicans would have done better had not been for the cuban missile crisis which ended in what appeared to be a victory for the united states. it gave a glow to the kennedy administration that helped the midterm election. there are so many others that people don't remember because they can be small and effect one state or they can affect one demographic. i look for those because they can be significant when you have close races as we do for the senate. host: have we seen some october

surprises? guest: the first october surprise is the dobbs decision but it didn't occur in october. we use the term october surprise but it could be earlier or in the first week of november. this is the first tuesday after the first monday in november and it could be as early as november 2 and this year it's on november 80 step every day matters in the final things matter a lot but they don't matter as much they used to because we have so much early voting. we have election month instead of election day. in some states, it's election six weeks. while you have the vote accumulating, people are determining their votes based on what they know on the day they mark their ballot. over the years, i have talked to

more pollsters and people come in and change their mind and they want their ballot back and you can't because they separate your vote from the envelope. they have no idea which one is your vote. you cannot get it back. that is the downside of voting early. you may miss some of the october or early november surprises. host: how much does the crystal ball focus on mail-in voting numbers, early vote numbers? how do you account for that in recent cycles? guest: we love statistics and everybody in politics does. that's why so many people in politics follow sports. do we determine our races based on that? n becauseo.

we are moving from an electorate that only voted on election day to electorate that much prefers to vote by mail or vote early in person, something other than election day. and there is an upside to this. you can cast your ballot before some major event happens but the upside of doing it is when people wait for election day, life is crazy for most people. your child may get sick or you have to take them to the doctor you could have a flat tire and your boss may call you in early and you have to stay late and you don't have time to go to the polls. when it's all done on one day, it's possible for many people to miss voting. at least with this, you can work it into your schedule over a month's time more or less pending on the state. host: larry sabado's crystal

ball, the house and senate and good but -- and gubernatorial races and were talking about all of it. let us know which races you want to discuss. it's also pole flooding season. we are inundated with different poll numbers. what should we read into the polls now and what should we be reading? what advice would you give to viewers who are getting these numbers? guest: i would be foolish to say we don't ignore these polls. we've learned something important since 2016, which is

just as an earlier generation discovered the race of 1948 where the polls miss predicted that election, we learned because of the trump misfire in 2016 where the polls and pundits predicted hillary clinton to win and donald did, that polls are not as accurate as we thought they were. while they have tried to reform and i salute the organizations that have experimented to improve the process, they have still been inaccurate. they were inaccurate in 2016 and 2020. there is extra reason for reading them and looking at them but not assuming that it's god handing the tablet to moses. it's not. they can be flawed in many different ways and you can see that when you look at individual

polls. they are all over the place. you will have a certain number of holes -- a polls showing the partisan candidate ahead and they are trying to flood the polling averages and to keep their volunteers and their party excited and upbeat because they seize on a good pull and ignore the rest. that's a danger for everybody. we seize on a pole that has the result we like and nor the polls that have results we don't like. what i tell people and i put this on twitter every election season, what polls do is tell you in aggregate if the races is close or not. if it's within a few points, within the margin of error and that's probably too restrictive, three or four points but when you look at all the ways the

polls can veer off track, the margin of error is probably larger. if the lead for a candidate is be on the margin of error, you can comfortably say that candidate is leading. if the lead for a candidate is within the margin of error, then you can say this is indeterminate and suggests that as of today, maybe this candidate is the best but it's close enough that turnout patterns could change and last-minute events could change it, mobilization could change it. yes, you read the polls and nobody will tell you not to but you might not take them as seriously as you used to. host: in new york, is the race for the campaign committee chairman and that race is a

tossup against his republican challenger. your thoughts on that race and the larger story up with that pole could mean? guest: i need to know who it is. sometimes the pollsters are right. they have an agenda. they almost always tend to show their candidate doing better than the polling average. sometimes they can be right but it causes you to be suspicious and there are polling groups on the republican and democratic side the do that step maloney has been somewhat controversial with her -- his democratic campaign.

the democratic leadership seems to be leading but his district is not overwhelmingly democratic step it's theoretically possible for for him to be defeated, maybe more than theoretically. you bet a little less on them and redistricting years which is what 2022 is because we had the redistricting between 2021-2022. new york was a prime case. it's possible that these polls are designed to come out toward the end to unsettled the political map, unsettled the political class and give inspiration and motivation to the party on the side the was expected to lose. there is no definitive answer except the one on november 8. host: let's go to new york ,lee

is on the line for republicans. caller: good morning, i want to respond to his comments about the cuban missile crisis. president biden said on several replays that he wants us to give up our lease on guantanamo day because it's too expensive even though we are spending money like you would not believe. i'm concerned about the danger of who will occupy this territory if we give it up, thank you. host: that's farther afield from the midterms but would you care to jump in? guest: the very next time that you have a foreign policy expert on washington journal, i encourage the lady to call. that's an excellent question. host: lynn in columbia,

maryland, good morning. caller: perhaps you are short changed in a historical context to the term october surprise. for your audience, the name of a book that was published by an advisor in the first administration of ronald reagan had to do with the fact that at the time, 80 americans were being held hostage in iran by the new regime that had taken over. there was concern that president jimmy carter, if his administration had secured release of those hostages, it would have given him just enough edge to win that election of 1980. at the time, his administration in areas of finance but the people running the campaign for ronald reagan which was george

herbert walker bush and william casey later became head of the cia negotiated a secret agreement with the new revolutionary regime under the ayatollah ho maney in iran -- host: do you want to bring us up to the midterms of this year? caller: this shows how elections can be manipulated. guest: i can name october surprises before the term became common. lyndon johnson's bombing hauled to north vietnam announced on national tv without much prior buildup. it was right before the november election which helped get hubert humphrey into a near tie back in 1968 step there are plenty of cases we can talk about.

that was not the key event that produced jimmy carter's 10 point loss. he was behind by 2-3 points already and that was more than enough in that particular year given the tilt of the electrical -- electoral college to elect ronald reagan and even if the collapse of the negotiations with the iranian regime had not occurred in the sunday before the election, let's keep it in context. it, lee helped to bring in a republican senate stop i don't think a reagan margin -- margin would have done that. these things are always layered and they are more complicated than they appear on the surface and certainly more complicated than you can summarize in a few sentences. host: in terms of more

complicated, haven't forgotten your question about who conducted that pole, mcglocklin and associates. for people trying to navigate these things, what should they look for when trying to decipher these holes? guest: you need to look and see whether there is a partisan designation to the pole. most of the sites that cover polling correctly a listn r or a d if they are partisan pollsters. it doesn't mean the pole is wrong but there is an edge further republican.

if there are additional polls in that district, i would be surprised that they show there is a dead heat there. host: do the debates still matter? guest: i think they can matter particularly if the candidate makes an error. the former governor terry mcauliffe did a year ago in october of 2021 when he appeared to dismiss parents as having a role in their school. it gave an issue to his republican opponent glenn youngkin who eventually won a relatively narrow election at 51% stop they can still matter but it's more in the coverage of what is said. unfortunately, people cannot

take hours and hours to watch all of the debates. you have a lot of debates on c-span i wish i could wash just watch more than i do. they are important but they are less important in the sense that partisan identification is more important. i often say the two most powerful letters in english language are d and r because they determine a large majority of the votes. people vote their partisan ids. when you scratch the surface and look at their voting history, you find that they almost always vote republican or the democrat in the partisan identification enables them to interpret all the issues through this partisan

screen and that's ok. parties serve many functions. let's not pretend that everybody sitting there objectively analyzing every word that's said in a debate for every event that occurs in the campaign trail. host: will you be watching john federman and men met oz in the pennsylvania senate seat debate? guest: this is an important one because of the issues that have been raised on john fetterman's stroke and the controversies that have surrounded dr. oz. i think you will see more substance to the debate, meaning campaign issues. i'm not saying they are real issues. there will be substance in there that could affect the vote. i don't know what the audience figures but i suspect there will be a lot of people outside

pennsylvania watching that bait. it's how the debate is a poor -- is reported and i hope there are no gaps because they are subversive to the debate process. you stick with them for the duration of the campaign and they can affect the final vote. host: this is walter, line for democrats. will you be watching tonight? caller: is that on c-span that debate? host: i think we will re-air it but i don't think it will be live. plenty of pennsylvania networks are airing it. caller: i hope they don't do -- edit stuff when it's played later. i noticed everybody is always editing.

host: if it's played later on c-span, i promise you there will be no editing. you were talking about caller: october surprises and i just had my octobers of rise. i had 250 gallons of oil with my oil heat. we've had some terrible winters. the winters appear get terrible. 250 gallons. i will ask both of you guys have much do you think i paid for that? guest: a lot. caller: i want to see if you two guys are in the loop where the rubber meets the road. 250 gallons of heating oil, professor, how much do you think i page? guest: this is not the price is

right so i don't have an exact number for you. host: i know you are paying more this year because the price index that came out yesterday shows that the cost of heating homes this winter will be 28% more compared to last winter. caller: that's right. this is my october surprise. $1100. my wife was here when they brought it. i got home later and she handed me the bill and i had to sit down. i am a lifelong democrat and i can tell you i'm not going to vote democrat this year. to begin with, i don't think fetterman is qualified to be a senator. two br summit -- a senator

representing us in washington, d.c., his background is so flimsy come i can't believe my party put him up for that. even you two guys sitting on c-span, even if you didn't have any idea how much it cost to heat my home and i have two granddaughters that come up here and stay with me and i cannot keep this house at 68 degrees. host: in our 9:00 hour, we will be talking on home heating costs on the report that came out yesterday. you might be interested in that stuff anything you want to pick up on? guest: i want to congratulate you on knowing the 28% increase. i would expect that because you are very knowledgeable and are from the university of virginia. host: larry sabado joining us

this morning. it's the crystal ball that you can check out races. about a half an hour left. kelly is a republican out of georgia, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. professor sabado, i so admire and respect your work. i'm so honored to be able to speak to you and john, you are a wonderful host. you always seem to be straight down the middle and i appreciate that. host: thank you, what's your question? caller: i want to make two remarks -- i believe the democrats very much overplayed the abortion issue. i think that was way too early and they overplayed it.

i don't believe it was going to end up being that big of a deal. my second thing was i don't think they considered what was going on in americans pocketbooks. my last thing, being in the state of georgia, me, myself and a lot of family members suffer from mental health problems. herschel walker we know has suffered from that. a lot of things that go on in the country, they always come back to mental health. i think it would be a wonderful thing to send someone to washington that has ideas, has suffered and overcame or has dealt with it, to have ideas like on gun violence or other things to be able to have ideas and things to help people.

they always say mental health -- illness another -- end of the with the other thing i wanted to say is, when you overplay an issue such as the abortion issue, it's not just a woman that's involved. if a woman gets pregnant and -- the man has no say -- if she decides to keep that baby, then the man is obligated to child support, obligated, we say the man needs to be in the child's life and everything. host: >> he wants the rest of his discussion on c-span.org and we take you live to -- democratic challenger -- hosted by new hampshire pbs.