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including cox. >> homework it can be hard but squatting in a diner for internetwork is even harder, that is why we are providing lower income students access to affordable internet so homework can just be homework, cox connect to compete. >> cox along with these other television providers, giving a front row seat to democracy. > weeks to go before the midterms, let's gaze into the crystal ball. center for politics.org is what you want to bookmark in this discussion. what is it telling you about what debt -- about who controls the house and senate? >> i think the odds heavily favor the republicans to take control. there have been 19 midterm election since world war ii and

in 17 of the 19, the party out of power in the white house gains seats in the house. you can argue forever about how many seats it could be but whether it's one or 50, one who assumes the republican party organize the house. i think it will be a decent number. you can argue whether it's 15 or 20 or 25. whatever. the house is very probable that the republicans will take that. we go back-and-forth every day depending was happening. it's very close and is something happens -- and if something happens them this late that could slant the elections toward the democrats, then it will determine the senate for the next two years were at least until a vacancy or vacancies occur.

that is the one to watch. depending how you count, five or six or seven seats that are in play, some are at the next level and potentially could be in play but they don't seem to be at the moment. that's interesting to me. the most interesting races are the governors races. there are quite a few competitive contests out there from coast to coast. host: with two weeks to go, what will you be watching for? it's your job to cover these races. what most interests you and the final 14 days? guest: i always focus on october surprises. i remember so many of them. one big october surprise changes everything and occasionally that happens.

this is the 60th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis which occurred in october of 1962, right before john f. kennedy' only midterm election and it helpeds the democrats. there was virtually no change in congress and they 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: you bring up a lot of issues. larry sabado, what do you want to pick up on? guest: i want to pick up on those kind remarks she made about you and me. that was by far the most important thing. i thank her for that and that's a sweet southern lady.

i couldn't get into all that if you gave me an hour. good questions and good topics to discuss but i want to offer you my sympathy and here's why. odds are, you will have to put up with another full month of that campaign because of the georgia rule that says in certain races, you have to have 50% +1 so when you have a third-party candidate on the ballot, there is a libertarian on that senate race ballot in the libertarian will get two or three or 4% and right now, warnock and walker are nearly tied in virtually every survey i've seen from both parties. you will have another run off in early december and unless you work for a tv station because you are making money hand over fist, they are the ones that

really benefit from this crazy system of 50% plus one, they should change it and have a cut off that's reasonable. you will have to put up with all of this for another month. as i say, lives are complicated and there are plenty of things to spend your time on but you will have to spend more time on that race even though you know how you will vote step you will be bombarded with ads and information on it. host: george is one of two senate races listed by the crystal ball as a tossup race and the other one is in nevada, the republican senate candidate in the democratic senator there. take us to this race. guest: it's interesting because of the senate race and the governors contest. both of them are very tight and they both could go republican.

there's an, democrat in the -- an incumbent democrat in the senate and incumbent republican. because it was happening with the latino vote in nevada, it's important in a certain percentage are not owing to vote democratic as they usually do. someone vote -- some won't vote and some will vote republican. nevada is a democratic leaning state. leaning meaning a small percent of the democratic direction because democrats tend to do very well with the hispanic vote step if they do less well, it means in leaning states and districts, races that might once have gone democratic could go republican. a lot of information i see as well as recent polling in nevada

suggest these races are very close. the experts we consult in that state and around that state believe the race may be leaning slightly republican. we will see. we've got a ways to go and they vote heavily in advance and by mail. there is a lot to consider their that's why we have it is a tossup and we have george as a tossup because it's likely could to go to a runoff. we don't have to make a decision until early december. host: we will come back here to washington, d.c. on our line for democrats. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i just had a comment and a question. the comment regards the georgia race. i think it's to raise up a candidate like herschel walker.

i am an african-american woman whose middle-aged and i think it's an affront to all african-americans that are in the republican party. or just from a perspective of races and having the ability to be a senator. that's my first comment. the second is a question for you, professor on thefetterman/ oz race. how do you think it will play out with dr. oz for his constituency, leaning into the fact that fetterman has a disability right now?

and they might use that as a means for him not being qualified to take office. i will hang up now. guest: i think we have to rely to a certain extent on the medical expertise. it's been offered but doctors associated with fetterman. there has been some analysis by doctors who treat stroke victims about fetterman's case and the use of the device to interpret words when there is a leftover auditory problem after a stroke. most of the commentary i have seen is encouraging for a full recovery which i hope every buddy would want him to have regardless of the boat. it's impossible for anybody to say what your health will be in a month or a year or six years

down the pike. i think you have to base your vote on other things, maybe party label again. i think fetterman will have to perform well in this debate and we will see how he performs. i've seen this before in stroke victims. it's not that unusual. we will see how he does and i hope that doesn't become the critical issue that determines the election. it's a very close race. it's a race that fetterman has led for a long time but it tightened in the days and weeks before the election. he's still ahead in most of the polls i have seen most of i think this debate will matter and that's why you should wash it on c-span or any other -- you

should watch it on c-span or any other outlet will step host: is there a willingness doctors and affectional's to make comments about the health or ability of a political figure when that person is not in peak condition? has that happened less in the past? guest: yes, at one time you didn't even mention such things. there were cases many years ago, decades ago of candidates who were severely limited by one disease or another or one condition or another who managed to get through a campaign without it being a major issue. there also have been people in office who were struck down by one illness or another and served for years without setting

foot on the floor of the senate to cast votes. it wasn't really discussed. people consider that be bad behavior, low class it's not because you are talking about representation of people and the state and everybody has a right to have two functioning step -- senators. the attitudes toward that and just about everything else have evolved, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in bad ways. very little is the same from the time i remember it first in the 1960's through the present. host: on the line for independents, this is mary. caller: recently, i found that some of the polls show that the republicans would better with the economy. isn't it true that joe biden has

done everything possible and ukraine is the cause of many problems including inflation and inflation is around the world. inflation is part of the business cycle. it's so unfair that the republicans keep touting that they will be able to do better but isn't it true that they cannot do a thing to make anything better, it's part of the economy? that is not the reason why anybody should consider voting for a republican. just like the man said, the oil price he paid is not because joe biden is not doing everything possible. host: larry sabado, on the economy. guest: she makes a good point,

presidents don't sit in the oval office pushing buttons and running a $20 trillion economy and we are linked with others around the world and we know that inflation is even worse. much of this has to do with the u.k. which has inflation worse than we do. having said that, she mentioned the word fairness and i have sold students for years that if you are concerned about erin's, that is your northstar -- about fairness, that is your northstar. don't go anywhere near politics. politics has very little to do with fairness. politics and elections are not fair depending on your interview.

why do people blame the incumbent president? it's human nature. we will when somebody and who better than the president in office? people assume incorrectly presidents have enormous power to control everything and if something is going wrong, it must be because they did something stupid. you can say that about the federal reserve board which had more to do with this than anyone else at least rare country. that's not how people think. they will blame the incumbent president and that's what they are doing now and that's what they have done across administrations, democratic and republican, since the beginning of the republic. it may or may not be fair you can make a good argument that isn't fair but it's reality. host: don't presidents often point the finger back and blame the president before them? at what point does the economy

become a presidential issue? when did that switchover politically? where was the turning point? guest: it used to be bad form to lane your predecessor after a decent amount of time like six months. that has gone by the board along with the other rules about form. presidents will do that, governors do it, we had our governing here blaming predecessors for the drop in the education scores. that's what executives do to duck responsibility for something happening now. it affects partisans in their party to join a president or governor in condemning the predecessor of the other party. for people who are less

partisan, it seems like a decking of responsibility. it seems cheap. take responsibility for what is happening in your term and we used to say that. we used to say presidents and governors are responsible for everything that happens good and bad during their term. it makes six cents for people to judge them that way and may not be there but that's how we allocate responsibility. now i think people work harder at ducking responsibility. host: the other state with the key to vittorio and senate race is florida. vincent, line for republicans, good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen and thank you for taking my call step i just have a comment in a quick question. as far as this administration, people are sick and tired of the blame game, not taking

responsibility just as you said. when you are in office, it's on you so that was my comment. my question is, do you have any idea why the debates have been cut? two years ago i believe they had 17 debates and now we are down to seven debates? i'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that and i will hang up and thank you again for taking my call. guest: the gentle man is correct step we do have fewer debates because the candidates can't agree or won't agree on the details of debate for for various reasons. some are justified but most of them are not. here's why they get away with it. they know they can. if voters were unhappy that they were not debating,, who is

responsible for the decision not to debate, if voters cast their ballot on the bases, if they nature the candidate is paying the price, then you would see more debates. going way back, i'm old enough to remember the kennedy-nixon debates of which there were four, which were watched by a total of about 70 million people. almost everybody who voted watched at least one of not more of those debates and they really mattered. it was probably the biggest innovation and presidential campaigns in many years. people said this guy has to be permanent. lyndon johnson looks at his and

norma's lead in 1960 oren says i'm not going to marry barry goldwater. richard -- richard nixon in 1968 was having none of it. he had no debates with hubert embry forger wallace and he didn't do it to johnson and nixon won in landslides. it wasn't until 1976 that we reestablished the tradition of presidential debates because of happenstance. gerald ford was not elected and he felt the knowledge he had, having been in congress for so long and then vice president, would allow him to show people he was better all of five to continue as president than jimmy carter who was the one term governor of georgia. jimmy carter felt he wanted to demonstrate that he was fully capable of standing toe to toe

with the incumbent president. they both had a motive for debating and it reestablished the notion that candidates should debate in the just on the debate continued even with incumbent who were heavily favored step they didn't have as many debates but for heard two of them in 1984. i hope we will not get away from that again. i worry at the presidential level that we may find a candidate or two with excuses for not debating. there are no real excuses but it may be enough to sell to the party. that trickles down to the senate level and other levels. we should maintain this tradition. it's true that not many boats change usually on account of a debate but voters are better informed because of them, not for the people watch the debates but the people who watch a two

or three minute summary on the news or hear it on the radio or look at a headline. they learned something about the campaign.