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host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." with the midterm elections only days away americans are taking stock of their lives as they get ready to vote. while the top issues on the minds of voters seems to be crime, according to a new gallup poll, the perception of local crime has reached a 50 year high. more than half of americans, 56%, say there is more crime in their local area then there was a year ago. what do you think? is there more crime in your town or city? will this affect how you vote? that is what we want to know as we explore the new gallup poll showing perception of local crime reaching a 50 year hi. we are opening regional lines. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your number is going to be (202)-748-8000. if you are in the mountain or

pacific time zones, your number is (202)-748-8001. keep in mind you can always text us at (202)-748-8003. and we are always reading on social media on facebook at facebook.com/c-span, on twitter @cspanwj and instagram @ cspanwj. a gallup poll put out a poll earlier this week and they asked americans whether there was more crime where they live. we want to bring you the details they found. 56% of the people that were polled said there is more crime where they live. 78% said they thought there was more crime in the united states then there was a year ago.

and the worry about being victims of a sex crime was significantly up from 2021. our question this morning, do you see more crime where you live? do you think it is because of the pandemic? will this affect how you vote in the united states? our numbers are on the screen. we want to know what you think. gallup wrote about the pole as they were putting this out and i want to bring you some paragraphs from what they said. this year's record high perception of the rising local crimes builds upon last year's sharp increase. in addition to the 56% who say there is more local crime, 28% think there is less 14% think the level stayed the same. on the national front, beyond the 78% who think there is more crime in the u.s., 13% say there

is less than 7% think there is about the same amount. the low point for both trends was recorded in 2001 after the terrorist attacks resulting in a rally affect among americans and the large loss of life at the hands of terrorists overshadowing perceptions of local and national crime. we want to know what you're seeing in your city. do you think there is more crime today than there was a year ago? will this affect how you vote? let's start by talking to ray calling from ithaca, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. in new york, there's is a lot more violent crime. we had somebody stabbed to death in the last day or so. we have had many people sent to the hospital but this is our first death. home invasions, people getting

attacked in their cars, locally, we are just a few hours from new york city. people are afraid to go into new york city because of the crime. it seems on the uptake. we read more on it. talking to friends and things, this is a heavily democratic area, and more people will be voting for lee zeldin. host: what do you think is the reason for the uptick in crime? do you think it is because people are out and about again after having been isolated the last two years? or do you think something else might have been the cause? caller: i think it is the no cash bail. i have talked to law enforcement people in different positions and they think that is a big problem. we get a lot of repeat offenders

and i do not think most criminals are afraid. they are out in the street within 48 hours. host: is this going to affect who you vote for locally when it comes to the midterm elections? caller: well -- host: they are the ones who have actually deal with the crime. will it affect the local level? caller: yes. host: is there somebody you are not going to vote for that you would have voted for originally because of the crime issue? caller: i am not sure myself, but talking to others, i was talking to people months ago that were going to vote for kathy hochul that are now voting for lee zeldin. host: mark calling from massachusetts.

good morning. caller: yes, good morning, jesse. grotten, massachusetts. host: i knew i had mispronounced it. caller: like grotten, connecticut where the nuclear base is. i think a lot of the perception is caused because of our political divisiveness in the country today. it does seem like there is more crime. throughout history, i have studied american history to some degree in college, and there has always been gangs and stuff like that. but i think the political

divisiveness is really giving people the perception, you know what i mean? people watch, you know, the news channel that tells them what they want to hear. the people whose party is out of office want to make it look like crime is a lot worse than it really is. host: what are you seeing locally? do you see things getting better or worse locally when it comes to crime? caller: well -- host: or is it about the same? caller: to be perfectly honest, i would have to say it is a little bit worse than, you know, my lifetime. i am 63 years old. i live in fairly rural massachusetts, an hour outside of boston.

we don't have a lot of crime here but it does seem like it is ticking up to some degree. and the bible tells us that is what is going to happen as we get closer to the end times. host: let's go to francis calling from montana. good morning. caller: good morning to you. i am a senior citizen, close follower of local and national current events. in my area, which is the largest county in the state of montana, the biggest city of billings, montana, crime has increased significantly. i believe the causes of it are left over from the pandemic problem as well as the most recent significant inflation and

other economic problems foisted on all of us in this country starting january of this past year. host: francis, are you seeing things in your town that makes you think crime is rising? for are you seeing it in other areas? caller: both. in the billings area, which i am part of, their has been a significant increase in shootings and automobile accidents and drug use and you name it. host: do you think this will affect how you vote in the midterm elections? caller: no. host: local officials are the first line when it comes to crime. caller: i have already voted. host: you have already voted?

good. caller: we both vote by mail. it did impact how i voted certainly. host: according to the pew survey, your political party does sometimes depend on what you think about crime. i want to read a couple of paragraphs from the poll that talked about partisanship and the perception of crime. as the case with many perceptions of national conditions, partisanship plays a significant role in shaping americans' assessment of crime. since 2000, the supporters of the president's party have been less likely than the opposition party to say crime is increased. before that, during george h. w. bush and clinton, that was the reverse. with joe biden in the white house and after the fbi released the statistics the percentage of

republicans who said there was more local crime increased from 38% to 67%. independent's perceptions also edged up while democrat's views were unchanged. 73% of republicans say crime has risen while 51% of independents and 42% of democrats say the same. we want to know what you think about crime in your area and whether it is going to affect how you vote in the midterms. stephen is calling from la crosse, washington. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: i live out in the country in the wheatfields and everybody says we are 10 years behind the real times. it is safe. we are old-fashioned,

god-fearing christians. the majority of the people are wheat farmers and they have a strong upbringing. the bible, i mean, you have to have a lot of faith to plant a crop and hope it grows. what i think is happening nowadays is everybody has walked away from god because our country was founded on these principles. me and my dad, we do not get along because he does not believe in god. 8:32 john, "the truth will set you free." there is one kid in our town whose dad died of fentanyl -- sorry, his dad died of an aneurysm in his uncle died of fentanyl. he is a troubled kid.

even in this tiny town there are drugs and what is bad is during the pandemic, you know, you're not supposed to go to church. you could go buy weed and they say it is harmless, this and that. i used to do drugs and now i get high off of god. host: stanley calling from pontiac, michigan. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: i am doing great. caller: crime is been the same i whole life. it goes up a little and it goes back and forth. 57-year-old and never been robbed or anything. where i grew up i had one house broke in my entire life. you have a good day. host: we would like to know what you are seeing on crime in your local area.

if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your number is (202)-748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zone, your number is (202)-748-8001. now, the issue of crime and public safety is becoming a top issue in the midterm election. in this week's new york governor's debate between kathy hogle and lee zeldin it was a major topic. here is the congressman on his opposition to the cashless bail laws. [video clip] >> they want to see reform. even mayor adam says judges should have discretion. drug smugglers were busted with over $1 million of crystal math and they should be released by cashless bail. kathy hochul supports

cashless bail. she supports brian benjamin, the guy that had to resign? we need to repeal cashless bail, raise the age and less is more. we can make our streets safe again. i am running to take back our streets and to support our men and women in law enforcement. this is about republicans, democrats and independents as new yorkers to make sure our streets and subways are safe again. this is the opportunity. two weeks from tonight we can continue with the status quo or we can take control of our destiny and make sure law-abiding new yorkers are in charge of our streets. >> i will give you the chance to respond. >> happy to. you can either work on keeping people scared or you can keep them safe. i have worked hard to have real policies that are making a difference and as you mentioned,

that data is still being collected, but i focused on our budget. it was nine days late because i insisted on common sense change. but there is no crime-fighting plan if it does not include illegal guns and you refused to talk about how we can do more. you did not show up for votes in washington when a bipartisan group of legislators voted for an assault weapon ban. we lost another child and teacher yesterday in st. louis and that is the ban on assault weapons for teenagers. it is extraordinary but it is about getting guns off the street. we have more to do but i am the one to do it. host: let's see what our social media followers are saying about the public perception of local crime. one person on twitter saying, there is more crime in my area but it is a suburb and it is all the people carrying guns.

i live in a right-wing area and crack cocaine and meth is rampant. it has nothing to do with democrat or republican, it is the guns. another person saying, the local crime rate has not budged. it is not the major issue it is made out to be. there is a lot of worse things coming our way if the gop takes charge. it is the only promise they will deliver on. another tweet that says, i am fortunate because there is not much crime in my small town. i can bike and explore nature alone. i used to love big cities but i do not desire to visit anymore. one last week that says, perception. crime rates are lower than they were in the 1970's and 1980's. half the politicians are trying to scare you. guess which party? wt to know what you think about local crime in your area. gallup says the public perception on local crime has reached a 50 year high. we want to know what you are seeing in your local area and

whether this is going to affect how you vote in the midterm elections. the fbi, according to their data, violent crime in the u.s. has gone down and they continue to be at an extremely low level. if we look at the fbi data on their website, when it comes to shear violent crime, this is just violent crime, the rate of violent crime has been going down since the 1990's and we are seeing a small uptick in the 2020's. book violent crime in the united states is nowhere near where it was in the 1990's but the perception of crime is going up. what are you seeing in your city? let's talk to john calling from columbus, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning, america. yes, crime is going up, it is going up.

as a registered person who carries a firearm i live in the city, downtown columbus. i am right around the corner from the statehouse, city hall, everything. i tell you, mental health is for real. it is really for real because we have panhandling, we have a group of young people call the key boys keying cars. it is really sad to see people -- to see things going down. mental health is for real. as a registered firearm person, i am african-american, 47, and i carry a gun. i hate to say that but i carry a gun. it is sad to see human beings acting like, i don't know. i don't know what it is. i don't know if we need to go

into the schools, do something with going to the penitentiary. it keeps getting worse and i hate carrying a firearm. host: who do you blame for this rise in crime? is of the politicians' fault? is it the educational system? is at the police? whose fault is it? caller: man, i really don't know because i see the politicians on both sides try to handle it. i see the police trying to handle it. i just think mental health is what it is. i don't know if drugs is going up. we can buy pot out here. i don't know if it is people not lacking faith or going to church on sundays. they are just acting amuck. i go to work every day monday

through friday and i hate carrying a firearm, i really do. host: will this rise in crime affect how you vote locally and nationally when it comes to the midterm elections? caller: no, because i know what is at stake. if my mom and dad were alive, my dad took me to vote when i could at 16. i am going to vote at my local school. i tell people, if you don't vote, shut the hell up. no, it is not going to affect me at all. we just really need to look into mental health and get into these high schools. host: angelo calling from rhode island. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: yes, good morning.

local crime here is up in the area and i relay it to the home upbringing. i think people need to get back to basics when bringing up your children in the right way. go to work, make money, do your thing. the leadership and the politicians, totally different story. they don't focus on anything but what is good for them and that is what causes the problem. it is all political, not policies. they are focused on policies and getting the people -- when you have high inflation, there is no way you are going to lower the crime rate. that high inflation is causing people to panic. even if you had children.

think about not putting food on the table for your children. that becomes an issue. i took a local ride the other day and went through providence. what a disaster it has become. my old neighborhood of silverlake looked like a third world country. unbelievable. it just went downhill and like i said, it is about the politicians taking care of themselves. host: will this rise in crime affect how you vote locally in your local elections and nationally? caller: yeah, in the national election i have not even looked at it. but for the state and senate, i already voted. i definitely went republican this time only because i think they have more control over the

law & order and getting back to work hard, play hard. that is the way i look at it. i have seen the democrats the last two years and i have seen it downhill. host: let's go to buford calling from illinois. caller: good morning. i'm calling from palatine which is a suburb of chicago. a lot of the people who are talking about the crime issue do not live in areas where there is high crime. where i live is very safe but chicago as a whole there is crime. but crime has actually gone down. the problem is crime that affects people, that people can

feel, like carjackings, robberies, you have a small store and people come in and rob you, people stealing catalytic converters. these crimes that people feel is prevalent. that is the problem. people feel not safe and it does not matter what the statistics are. if you feel you are unsafe, you are unsafe. perception is the problem. crime is a problem but there are two issues. one is guns. i agree with governor hochul. if you do not talk about gun reform, you are not addressing the serious situation. if something wants to attack somebody and they don't have a gun, they are going to think twice. but the problem is people 20 years old, teenagers, they have more power. you cannot do anything. back in the day, you would be like, get away from here.

you would see some robbing a lady and you would stop your car and get out. you can't do that because they might be 14 or 15 but they are packing a glock. the young people really are empowered and instead of making minor mistakes now they are murdering somebody and their life has changed and they have changed the life of other people. and then it is the police. most police are trying to do a good job but there is a percentage -- i don't know what it is, 3%, 5% -- we saw that the capitol -- and they are in control of these departments. in chicago, we have a right wing person in charge of the police union who has been fired from the police department but still in charge of the police union. what kind of confidence does that give people when they have somebody like this in charge of

the police union? host: looking back at the new gallup poll talking about public perception of local crime. look at what crime people are actually worried about. according to the gallup poll, these are the crimes with the largest increase inry this year. theber one crime that most people are worriedbout is their chilg physically harmed at school. 47% of people were worried about that. that is up 13% from last year. also is getting mugged. 40% of people were worried about that and that up 7%. being attacked while driving car, carjackings, roade up 36% -- sorry, up to 36% and up 7%.

your house being burglarized while you areome. that is at 34%, up from 6%. being sexually assaulted is up 8% with 29% of people being worried. and getting murdered is at 29% and as up 7%. what crimes are you worried about? let's go back to the phone lines and talk to dee calling from newberry park, california. caller: thank you for taking my call. what prompted me to call was you mentioning the fbi statistics that crime has fallen. however, i get "the wall street journal," i get the daily news and a local newspaper. i know newspapers are going away but i enjoy them. i can follow news on a computer

but i am going to say this, i have read several times and seen things where the fbi put out there crime report except they did not include new york or los angeles. and i think philadelphia but i know for sure new york and los angeles. those are two high crime areas. if they did not include that, what is their report saying? can you tell me if this is an updated report you were getting from the fbi? and i have lived in southern california my entire life and let me tell you, i love playing duplicate bridge. during the pandemic hour bridge club was shut down. the owner reopened a club, duplicate bridge club, and it is at de soto and ventura boulevard near kaiser.

the homeless people when you get off the freeway, they were under the freeway going out into the streets, there were shootings, people defecating on the streets, drug use is up. and it is not just what you hear in the news. i have seen it. we have family, friends, experiences and i don't trust the fbi report if it has not been updated. if they say, oh, crime is down. gee, i have never seen the san fernando valley look so bad. host: i will tell you while you are on the phone i am looking at the fbi data and they said in 2021, the fbi statistics were based on over 11,000 law enforcement agencies in the country for that year. they did not get data from everyone.

they only get data from some of the law enforcement agencies and they deal with what they get. caller: if they do not include new york and los angeles, there statistics are way off. the area i lived in -- the same area 53 years -- we were the number one safest small city in california. it is not anymore and i can tell you we have homeless people, graffiti, and i'm going to say something else about marijuana. the younger people -- some start smoking at 13, 14, 15. i am an older person and when marijuana was first being used the thc was 2% or 5% and now it is 98%. it is affecting the synopses of their brain. they do not have inhibitions.

they are not cautious. they are careless and marijuana is up. fentanyl, i do not even consider fentanyl a drug of addiction. it is a drug of death because it is so terrible. and i don't get where the fbi said crime is down. i could be wrong, but what people are seeing and what is in the newspapers every day and on the news every day, i wake up and i turn on the local news, this shooting at a school, this person shooting at police officers. these people come into stores 10, 20 people and overtake the store. you can steal up to $950. host: thomas calling from

maryland. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: this issue on crime is multifaceted. you have a lot of people basing their comments on a lot of the crime as far as shooting and road rage and carjackings. but there are other towns where people are committing crimes. you have wall street crimes, you have discrimination, that's a crime. we have a lot of categories but people put it in a box. shooting and they are robbing. it is more complex than that. when i senator stands up in front of a tv camera and tells a lie, that is a crime. when the president stood in

front of a large crowd of majority white people and told them to go to the capitol and kick ass, that is a crime. inciting a riot is a crime. it is more complex than people talking about guns and guns is the issue, but you don't hear anybody saying ban guns. i believe that the republicans a re anti-black in a certain way because they promote violence. you had people attacking kanye west for his antisemitism and they should have. but you don't have anybody attacking the politicians, the white politicians, that stand up there and say things. they use the term, this is not in the code. we know what they mean. it is like nancy pelosi's

husband. we knew what that drunk from virginia was saying. this is crime too and we have to start calling out the senators, congressman, policeman, mayors that are not pro-peace. they are promoting crime and you see it with this political season more than ever. host: the midterm elections are coming up and crime is a major theme in several of the races around the country. crime was a major theme in the close watch wisconsin senate race. here is an ad by ron johnson. [video clip] >> reducing the population is

effective. >> they have released over 800 criminals including 44 child rapists. that is not sexy, it is terrifying, and i don't want mandela barnes anywhere near the senate. mandela barnes is a threat to wisconsin families. >> i am ron johnson and i approve this message. host: mandela barnes responded to this ad with his own, denying being soft on crime. [video clip] >> we know the other side will makeup lies about me to scare you. i will make sure our police have the resources and training they need to keep our communities safe. our communities will have the resources to stop crime before it happens. i will bring back manufacturing and pass middle-class tax cuts. if that is too scary for washington, so be it.

i am mandela barnes and i approve this message. host: let's look at what our social media followers are saying about crime and the elections. one tweet says, politicians and media are using crime as an election issue. talk about something constantly and it changes perception. right wing media showcases crime only in democratic areas but there are more crime and republican-led city states. propaganda works. one tweet says, inflation is a major theme, crime not so much. we have guns. another tweet says, the crime i am most worried about is involved in a mass shooting event, like the americans celebrating a fourth of july parade this year. people who should not have guns are the ones with the guns that are being used to kill americans. when less tweet says, i am not worried about any of those crimes but it is hard to believe

30% of america is worried about being murdered. we want to know what you think about crime in your area. gallup has a new poll saying public perception of local crime has reached a 50 year high. let's talk to michael calling from tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i agree with the caller from delaware. there is multifaceted crimes. the perception is propagated by media coverage when they only cover the most sensational crime and they usually involve murder, guns, or rape. the republicans do nothing to stem that. in fact, they feed on it. the state has been republican-controlled since

2007, 2008, super majority since 2017. the crime rate here is higher in this state, well, the homicide rate is higher than the states of california and new york combined and the republicans scream about being tough on crime. that people are not serving their full sentences when that is a lie. there was a murder that took place here at couple of months ago. a former inmate who had served his statutory time, written by the legislature, which was republican, and got out and did this heinous act and they are screaming they have to do all of their trying. it has been that way here. they like to stoke the base.

if you look in the southern republican-controlled states, your crime rates are double digits and again, higher than new york, california and some other larger states combined. the big problem is media coverage and the other problem is guns. you will not have these road rage shootings if guns were not so prevalent. there is no background checks, they need to raise the ages of legal purchase to 21, they need to ban assault weapons. the republican party here just polls a ruse on the populace and they buy it. host: we talked earlier about the crimes that had the largest increase in worry. but those are not the crimes most americans are worried about.

here is the list of crimes most americans are actually worried about on a daily basis. the top of the list is credit card or financial information stolen by comper hackers. that is the crimmost americans are actually worried about. having theirredit card stolen or being hacked and having your bank accou hacked. righbend it is identity theft. identy theft and credit card hacking are the two crimes americans are most worried about, by far. and then we get to your child being physically harmed at school at 47%. having your car stolen or broken into at 47% as well. and having your home burglarized while you're not there. those of the crimes americans seem to be most worried about. we want to know what you see

going on in your neighborhood and how it is going to affect you when you vote in the midterm elections. let's talk to larry calling from north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i'm great. how are you doing, larry? caller: splendid. i have been listening to a lot of things on the news and i feel a lot of these things about crime starts at home. communication with your kids. letting them know what is out in the world. the media has a lot to do with this. the media say things that get people aggravated and then a lot of people suffer with posttraumatic stress. you can get posttraumatic stress from anything. a lot of people don't understand that.

but a lot of these kids when the baton is passed to them they hear their parents talking about the way things has happened and they will sit there and mess around and go somewhere in the drug area and by guns. it is not only for the black side but the white side. our politicians, i don't know what to do with our politicians. they are so flimflamsy. we have to stay on a solid road and put god in our life. that comes first. host: jeff calling from fairplay, missouri. caller: good morning to you. i don't think it is a republican or democrat issue.

i believe that crime is a society issue due to the lack of fathers and families sticking together. god is the most important thing and we have tooken god out of the schools and children have no self pride because they have no family to look up to. the idea that we can cure it by taking guns, we as humans can only do what we can do ourselves. we are not going to change everything by taking the guns away or by throwing everybody in jail. this world needs to turn to god. we are all god's children. we should remember to love each other. we should all remember everybody is special and everybody is needed. host: henrietta is calling from fort pierce, florida. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i want to make a distinction

between perception and reality. it is very sad about mr. pelosi. however, there are tens of thousands of people in california who get their head bashed in with a hammer and those perps are not given an indictment of attempted murder. there are two different justices. they are lies and statistics. what we know about the fbi, what they do best, is lie. in addition to that, maxine waters front and center, when she said, get in their face, tell them you are not wanted, we don't like you. it is terrible.

it is very, very terrible when you have people in power who think they are special. paul is not special. he is a crime victim just like the tens of thousands of other crime victims. but the difference is their perpetrator gets out. pelosi's perpetrator does not get out. why? because there is a two-tier justice system. host: chris is calling from bonita springs, florida. caller: the last callers are so articulate and right on spot. the problem is lack of societal morality and breakdown of societal morality. and it is being encouraged by the media, who encourage

propaganda and lies for political purposes, and the social media that does not allow free speech. the encouragement of things like, you must accept everything no matter how deviant and weird it is, you must accept it or you are a bad person. no, i'm sorry. at some point we are going to have to go back to what is normal, the difference between good and evil, the difference between healthy and unhealthy. we seem to be -- i think too many lawyers are a lot of the problem. it has gotten to the point of being crazy. and also, expecting people to work themselves to death. in the 1950's, mothers stayed home with her kids, the family was more intact, you did not

have the problems you have today. people are economically forced to institutionalize their children in day care or whatever and it is a bad outcome. these social experiments are not good. host: public safety and gun laws was a topic during the recent georgia governor debate between gop incumbent governor brian kemp and democratic challenger stacey abrams. here's a portion of that debate. [video clip] >> i would let people at home no the largest, fastest growing segment of the population that is buying handguns and firearms as african-americans and females. you know why? because the criminals are the only ones that have guns. you have local governments holding up concealed weapon permits that are keeping law-abiding citizens from being able to simply use their second amendment right to protect themselves and their property

and their families. i will certainly support that. >> may i respond? >> 30 seconds. >> i believe we can protect the second amendment and second graders at the same time. yes, more people are buying guns. that is because they think that is the only way to protect themselves because guns have flooded our streets. these communities want to be safe. they don't want to have to carry weapons. i know how to shoot, my great grandmother taught me, but the person most responsible is the one that holds the weapon. i will quote wow note -- i will quote ronald reagan, there is no longer a background check for those who have concealed carry permits. >> thank you very much. [crosstalk] >> there is a federal background check on every individual that buys a firearm in the united states. >> that is not true.

[crosstalk] >> i understand the point you're making but the point is when you buy a firearm you get a background check. >> mr. kemp, if you purchase a weapon in present or at a gun show -- >> we are going to move on. host: let us see what our social media followers are saying. the republicans will say crime is a major issue but it is not, it is guns, guns, guns and they promote guns. they will not do anything about crime. crime is down but in the southern states crime is up because of guns. this tweet says, yes, because the news is a business and panic makes money. another tweet says, the mainstream media is flooding the screens of propaganda ads. this is why the public perception is high. fear and anger are the only weapons the gop have to win elections.

another tweet says, crime is now the issue because people have been told to believe it is worse now than in the past. one last tweet says, all guns used in crimes at some time were legal. the red states just about give guns away without permits. these guns find their way is into cities. reduce the number of guns, reduce crimes. we want to know what you are seeing in your local area. gallup says the public perception of local crimes has reached a 50 year high. we want to know what you are seeing. let's talk to gar calling from decatur, georgia. caller: good morning. it is very simple. we spent 20 years in afghanistan, 20 years, and i was in the military. they used to make us kiss our guns, make you fall in love with you guns. in the communities, you did not

hear about gun violence until after the vietnam war. that was the youngest war ever fought. soldiers came home and the violence started. war comes home to the united states -- we have been in war two out of three years since world war ii. when i was growing up in the 1950's my granddad had a shotgun. it was in the corner and we had all kinds of grandkids in the house. we would go nowhere near that gun. the vietnam war was when violence really started and we spent 20 years in afghanistan. it is plain and simple and we needed to take profit out of crime. did you know the court in 2014 made a ruling that it is no legal obligation for the police to protect the public? the police department gets millions and billions of dollars. but they have no legal obligation to protect the public. thank you, jesse.

host: jacob calling from wake forest, north carolina. good morning. caller: i would like to say something about people who are waiting for jesus or mohammed to come back and they think the way to get that done is to blow up the world. y'all find your little island, blow it up and let jesus and mohammed come back to that. as far as the rest of the world, why don't you leave it alone and pick up another book besides the one you read? thank you. host: barbara who is calling from new york. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i would like to say i believe there are three main issues i hope congress will take into

consideration. i really believe mental illness is number one. number two is the internet. the internet is good for getting information but people who get on the facebook and the other sites and form groups, that is dangerous. the third is i believe the court system is not tough enough on crime. those are three issues and i would like to say i think it is common sense that if you reduce the number of guns, it reduces the number of crimes, which another person said. host: on friday senator ron johnson, a candidate for reelection in wisconsin, gave remarks at a rally in franklin, wisconsin. at this event hosted by the

republican national committee he mentioned the economy and crime policy. [video clip] >> 11 days left. i have to point out because president biden is coming tomorrow. [booing] he was the first democrat leader i heard talk about fundamentally transforming america. remember that? of course, president biden -- i asked the question, do you even like [indiscernible] do you want to fundamentally transform? of course not. now we see with that looks like. four year high inflation crushing everybody, particularly seniors on a fixed income or the lower income spectrum. the very people democrats report

represent they are crushing with high inflation. record gas prices. driven purposely higher to force you to buy electric vehicles. [booing] skyrocketing crime because of their soft on crime policies. no bail which democrats lead that effort. their defund the police that is disdispiriting law enforcement. we have a dangerous surrender in afghanistan. this is what they meant. this is the fundamental transformation of america. they are fundamentally destroying america. that is what is happening. these people need to be stopped, they need to be defeated. host: former president barack

obama also went to wisconsin to campaign for democratic candidates running in the 2022 midterm elections, including incumbent governor tony evers and u.s. senate candidate lieutenant governor mandela barnes. here's what president obama said, former president said, about crime in the united states. [video clip] >> there is a lot of talk about crime right now as if folks don't have any idea. [laughter] listen, violent crime has gone up over the last seven years, not just the last two. the act like the other guy was not president when this was happening. it has gone up in conservative and rural areas not just the city.

so, who will fight to keep you and your family safe? is it going to be republican politicians who want to flood our streets with more guns? >> no. >> who voted against more resources for police departments? >> no. >> or is it leaders like tammy baldwin and glen moore who passed the best gun legislation safety and more than 30 years? [cheering and applause] host: let's talk to wayne calling from annapolis, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. when we talk about crime we cannot forget the greatest crime of the century was january 6 when our capitol was stormed by the republican party. going back to the situation when we had covid when they were

selling things at higher prices. they are so tied to the mafia and the guns. this is what makes america, you know, people look at us and say, what is going on in that country? that is where i stand. host: we would like to thank all of our callers and social media followers for being with us through that segment. comingfollowers for being with s through that segment. coming up, we will be delving further into her campaign 2022 and the political news of the day. that first conversation with charlie cook of the cook political report and the national journal will start in just a minute. then, american university communications professor w. joseph campbell will join us to discuss public opinion polls and the challenges pollsters face in the midterms. we will be right back. ♪

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congress is at stake. will republicans take the house? ken democrats keep control of senate? watch key races with debates, rallie candidate events as they happen. watch on tv, -- at c-span.org/campaign2022. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back. joining us is charlie cook, founder and contributor to the cook political report and the national journal. he is here to walk us through campaign 2022 and the political news of the day. good morning. guest: good morning. i am excited. we are almost there. host: we spent our first hour talking about crime.

and on the tips of everyone's tongue right now is what happened with speaker pelosi's husband, paul pelosi. are we seeing more political violence, and will that affect how people vote in this midterm election? guest: no question we are seeing more extreme rhetoric. and at the worst end, that ends up with violence. people will say anything. it just kind of -- the discourse is going to a coarser, more harsh place where, in the old days, there used to be some restraint people would have about how ugly they would attack an opponent. and now the shackles have sort of come off. i am not one of these people who has always run my hands over the future of democracy and stuff,

but i am now concerned about where we are going. host: we have seen the change in how people are campaigning. we have seen the harsher words being used in campaigns. have we seen a change in how people are voting because of this? guest: we have seen the parties change. you used to have ideological diversity. you had conservatives in the democratic party and liberals in the republican party and centrists in both. what has happened is anyone with any conservative dna at all that were not already republicans moved into the republican party, and that same with liberal dna moved into the democratic party. and centrists have pulled back and do not vote in primaries as much as they used to. we have come up with what used to be a left of center party and a right of center party has become a left party and a right party, and a lot of people in the middle do not feel like they have a political home. host: does that mean the people in the middle are not voting, or

does it mean they make up their mind at the last second who they will vote for? guest: i think they are not voting in primaries, so as a result, you are seeing more and more ideological, very ideological people getting nominated, so it is pulling the parties out. some of it is the rise of talk radio and cable news and social media and gerrymandering -- it is a combination of things that have sort of removed the moorings that kept the parties from going off. the moderating influences in each party is gone. host: you have been covering elections since 1980. i will ask you to look in the crystal ball -- with all this polarization, where does it leave the process? guest: more of the same, getting worse. until more moderate centrist pragmatic people in each party decide they want to take their parties back over again and start running for office,

working for campaigns, giving money, and most importantly, voting in primaries, until that happens, they will continue to go off the deep end for each side for the inmates running the asylum. host: ok. well, i hope you are wrong on that. guest: trust me. i do too. host: but let's look at the first midterm coming up. this is the first midterm of president biden's presidential term. is this a different midterm in any way? the political wisdom says the president's party loses seats in the first midterm after the president is elected. what do we see coming up? guest: it was shaping up to be a classic midterm -- 37 out of 39 midterms since the civil war. the party in the white house has lost seats. it was shaping up that way. it was normal, normal, normal.

then in august and september, it was like this is not normal. it was more of a choice than a referendum. then sometime earlier this month, it sort of went back to normal. so now, yeah, it looks like a classic midterm with the party in the white house getting hit. midterms -- it is time for a change. stay the course or time for a change. people will decide whether we want to stay where we are or go for something fundamentally different. if at two months, we thought it would be a choice where voters were cross pressured, they had issues and problems with president biden and the democrats, but they were also thinking about the republican party, abortion, president trump -- some people are not excited about him coming back. it was a legitimate choice. and then the economy sort of pulled it back in, and off we go back to a midterm election. host: i was going to ask you,

what was that turning point that you saw, where it moved back towards a normal midterm rather than a midterm where the president's party would not have lost so many seats? guest: i think that the things that boosted democrats starting in the early part of the summer is when it kind of started going, which was -- remember, you saw gasoline dropped from over $5 to below $4. you had democrats who had a real dry spell legislatively, then all of a sudden, they got five or six key pieces of legislation through back in june. you had the dobbs decision really animated, put starch in the shorts of democrats, and the whole mar-a-lago thing -- it took the election to a different place for a while. but it could not sustain itself. i think you do not have only 20%

to 25% of americans think the country heading in the right direction. that is not good for a party. you do not have these things happening and be in a good place, if you are the party in power. host: let me remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation. we will open our regular lines. that means republicans, you can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, your number is (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on twitter, @cspanwj, and on facebook, facebook.com/cspan. charlie, who do you see taking control in the house of representatives after this midterm election? guest: i would be astonished if republicans didn't take control.

i think it will probably be 15, 20 seats net gain. 5 is what republicans need. i think it is going up to a bigger number. not 40 to 70 that newt gingrich was talking about or up to 60 that kevin mccarthy that -- it will be a good-sized number. it is behaving normally now. it is this two-month period of time that it was behaving in a way we had never seen before. host: what about the senate? guest: the senate is going to be a very close call. there are half a dozen races that are extremely close. but i think the odds of democrats holding onto the senate are slipping away. but it could happen, and we have had a lot of surprise elections the last few years. but in this environment, if democrats hold onto anything, they will have the abortion

issue, donald trump, and republican primary voters nominating some exotic and potentially couple matter people, where i think republicans, no matter how good a night they have, i think they will be leaving some seats on the table, because there are some places, key races where they nominated people were -- let's just say a little suboptimal. that a placebo may win that they were republican, but they may have nominated a sub-placebo type candidate. host: what races should be be watching to figure out -- should we be watching to figure out who will be in control? guest: i would look at four. i would look at, really, arizona, nevada, georgia on the democratic side. on the republican side, pennsylvania and ohio. and whoever wins 3 out of 4 will

probably have control of the senate. so raphael warnock and martelly, reelections for democrats in arizona. in georgia. then the two open seats in ohio and pennsylvania. host: as we close in on election day, have you seen races like these turn in those last 10 days? guest: we have seen a general movement back towards republicans in many of these races. just a point or two or three kind of shifting over. as we move from being a choice back over to a referendum mode. host: has there been any major changes in the political reporting? guest: i do not own it or run it anymore, but i think david wasserman has done 15 or 20 changes in the last two weeks.

i know jessica taylor just moved -- where did she just move a few days ago? the thing is, i have in my mind what does the newsletter do, and in my mind, sometimes i have -- in my mind, i think ohio is a tossup. other people do not. everybody is a little bit different. host: so what do you have for your mind in pennsylvania? guest: i think democrats needed to push federman out -- fetterman out. this is a little snarky, but people ask me who do you think will win in pennsylvania? my thought is i think the state of pennsylvania will lose, because each party nominated their weakest candidate. had democrats nominated conor lamb, had republicans nominate david mccormick, the parties would be much better off. host: what do you think about

georgia? guest: it hit me a couple months ago that each party should have one month out a political mulligan, where they get to switch out a nominee. my guess is republicans would really like to have replaced herschel walker, and democrats probably would really liked to have replaced john fetterman, that they would have been better off. or if you had a parliamentary system where you could pick someone up, have a really good candidate in one place but maybe it is a tough state and move them. like tim ryan, in ohio, if you were not running in a state asked her for democrats as ohio, he would be doing really well, i think. but we are kind of parliamentary but not completely yet. host: what about arizona? guest: i think kelly will eke it

out. it is interesting he has decided to go a different way than synema. kelly sort of stood more with the democratic leadership as opposed to more of a -- i would have put a little bit of daylight between myself and the party, like synema has done and kelly not so much. but republicans went with some candidates that i think they could have done a safer choice. host: let's let some of our viewers take part in this conversation. we start with don from michigan, democrat line. caller: yes. i want to talk about the moderates in these parties. would you agree that the purge of the moderates in the parties

started with newt gingrich, when he was the house speaker? guest: i think moderates started sliding, becoming less influential -- i think it was the 1980's and 1990's. i think there are things you can hold against newt gingrich plenty, but i would not blame him exclusively. but i actually think that the growing polarization in the u.s. house started back in 1984. there was a house race, contested house race, in indiana's seventh district, where democrats sort of jammed through, gaveled through their candidates. kind of a florida presidential 2000 kind of thing, where who knows who really won, and it led to the house becoming more intensively partisan that i had before.

that led to the rise of newt gingrich and pushing out some of the more get along, go along republicans. it started in that period of time, but there is plenty of fault on both sides. host: let's talk to wesley, calling from south carolina on the republican line. good morning. caller: yes, sir. i agree with you, 100%, on a lot of these items. however, there is one item that i feel -- are you there? guest: yeah. caller: there is one item that i feel the democrats and republicans should get together on, and that his executive power -- that is executive power. number one, executive power should used only in an emergency, like a war or a hurricane. if you start using executive powers, whether republican, democrat, independent, whatever you are, you now become a

dictator. that is how i feel. guest: i guess it is how much is it wielded? congress cannot pass every single thing. there is not enough hours in the day. there are certain decisions that administrations have to make. if they make them to circumvent what congress has decided to do, that gets awfully aggressive. but there is a lot of mundane, day-to-day writing that is not particularly controversial that i say is necessary. so i would say not any use of executive authority, but there should be limits to how far an administration can go beyond what congress has indicated that they should go. host: we are talking about the midterm elections. we want to know if you have any

questions for our expert, charlie cook. our phone lines are open. republicans, you can call (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. and you can always send in questions on social media, at twitter, @cspanwj, and at facebook, facebook.com/cspan. in fact, i will turn to one of our social media followers for our next question, because they are wondering if the polling is right? this person says, mr. cook, i do not think the polls are fully accounting for the dobbs decision and the potential total ban on abortion is reflected. guest: let me do this two ways. first is to address polling, and then the dobbs decision.

in a previous life, i was a poster. it is so much harder to do polling today, with caller id and voicemail and telemarketers having burned people out. it used to be, if a poster made 100 calls, they would get 20, 25 completions. now they are lucky if they get 1. it has become phenomenally represented -- and harder to get a representative sample. and there are some people who just will not cooperate with a pole. they are not, by definition, republican, but they are is proportionately there. polling, i think -- whatever decision they used to be, i think of it as a decent estimate, but people should pay attention to the margin of error, and they should pay attention that there are undecided voters, and undecided voters do not generally slip

down the middle. they usually break one direction or the other. so the polling is not as bad as most people think it is, but it is not nearly as precise as some other people think it is. when you see races within a point or two or three ban, that is not a lead anymore. it used to be. in terms of the dobbs decision, you ask people what is the most important problem facing the country today, or what would you want to see washington do, and abortion comes in fourth or fifth place. it just does. the commenter may not like that, but it is poll after poll after poll coming up with that. it is kind of hard for any issue, as important as the abortion issue is, to squeeze out a 40 year high on employment, mortgage rates doubling, over half of americans think you're already in a recession. that is kind of hard to

marginalize those kinds of numbers. if the economy were great, i think the dobbs decision will be of much greater significance. but it is hard to push aside the economy. host: let's stick with that. voters have been saying economy and inflation is their number one issue. is that what voters are taking into the polling booth for midterm elections, and is there any way that will change in the next 10 days? guest: yes and no. [laughter] i mean, it kind of got pushed aside for a while, and now it is just kind of coming back up. i think democrats had a two month period where things were

looking less worse. but i think that was very hard to sustain. ultimately, an election like this is going to be about the economy and about our people happy with where things are or not? that is not a good place to be, if you are the governing party with the kind of economic circumstances we have today. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to greg, calling from fayetteville, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i wonder about the impact of early voting. i got a question and a comment. first, the question is how reliable do you think early voting is? and to second, -- and second, normally early voting favors the democrats. but i think it will favor the republicans, because they will be more motivated to come out and vote this time.

so how reliable is early voting? and the last question is who is counting those early votes? no one seems to know who is counting the early votes. is it the voting boards? can you clear that up? thanks. guest: sure. historically, there is no evidence -- there has never been any evidence that early voting was any less honest or more open to fraud than election day voting. historically, there has never been a natural advantage for one side or the other. it is sort of which party had their act together in a particular state or district, that was better organized, making sure the ballots out to people in full them out, fill them out and get them back in. but when president trump started attacking early voting, what he

did was sort of drove down the credibility, without any evidence, i believe, of early voting, so now if you were republicans vote early now then used to. -- than used to. our country, we are facing so many huge problems in this country -- voter fraud is not one. there is very, very little. instead, we have a rising number of people where there are only two outcomes to any sort of contest. either i win or it was stolen from me. it is very unfortunate. for any of your viewers who are curious about this, what they should do is go on lostnotstolen.org, a group of

conservative judges, former republican senators -- for the busth team, and basically they went through all the major allegations of irregularities from the 2020 election and demolished all of them. you had, before donald trump left office, you had 56 fbi field offices, 96 u.s. attorneys looking for voter fraud and didn't find anything. trump's attorney general, william barr, first week of december, three weeks after the election, said he did not find anything that would have changed the election. but people cannot accept the fact that more people voted for somebody else then who they wanted. i think it is very unfortunate. but early voting, it is absently just as safe and reliable as

election day voting --it is absolutely just as safe and reliable as election day voting. i do not know anyone in either party who actually believes there is a voter fraud problem in this country. eventually, people either put up or shut up. they either show the evidence of showing where there was fraud and prove it, or stop throwing the accusations out and stop undermining the election skate i believe the same about voter suppression p we had the highest voter turnout in 20 years and the highest midterms in 104 years -- there couldn't be that many people getting suppressed if there were record turnout levels. it may not be for lack of trying from some people, but we are having our public confidence in our elections being eroded. i think for not legitimate reasons.

but it opens the door in the future for some election to be taken away from someone who legitimately won. host: you have several points i want to dive into. point number one, what do you think happens this election if a democrat, republican, or a candidate of any party just says i won, don't worry about it, this election was stolen from me, we need to start all over again here what do you think happens this time? not presidential but a governor, senator, house, local persons as i was cheated, it was stolen from me? guest: the thing is, if they are not in an office affecting the certification of election, they can say that all day long. donald trump said ted cruz told the iowa caucus from him, which was obviously baloney in 2016. he was saying it was stolen up until he won it, and all of a sudden, it was not stolen anymore.

some things people just do not want to accept. you have had sore losers for as long as you have had politics, but they generally were not in a position to refuse to certify an election, you know? and that's why it has only been relatively recently that secretaries of state have become quite as partisan -- they have been partisan offices, but they sort of were low-profile and didn't create a lot of problems. and now we are seeing these offices become more and more politicized, which could raise questions about whether they are acting in the best interest of a free and rule of law if somebody is a sore loser, that's fine. but if it's affecting what they're doing and refusing to certify an election for example, that's -- to me that gets into

the realm of high crimes and misdemeanors to be perfectly honest. host: you also said we have had the highest turnout in presidential elections and midterm elections already. what do you expect turnout to be for this upcoming midterm election? guest: it's going to be enormous. whether it breaks the 2018 -- there are indices of how you measure, i think the census said it was the highest midterm in 30 years. by other mesh -- measurements since 1914, but i think we will have a massive turnout. you had two kinds of people, people that loved donald trump and people that hated donald trump. between the two, that's 95% of the people. i think we -- both bases are coming out in big numbers and the question is that 10% slice of pure independents that don't lean either way. i think they were really

cross-pressured. they were really concerned about the economy but they were really concerned about the dobbs decision or they may not have been crazy about donald trump or anything, but in the last month, that swing group seems to have started shifting over towards republicans. i think that's what's turned this election back over in favor of republicans once again and back to a traditional referendum election. host: one final question before we get back to our callers. do the early voters act in the same way -- vote in the same way as election day voters? are the early voters partisan voters or are they -- or do they vote in the same way as the election day voters? guest: prior to 2016, they voted pretty much the same way relatively speaking, the same way. but when then-president trump started trashing early voting, fewer republicans started doing

it. at that point, the early vote became disproportionately more democratic. but it was not that -- it was that republican use of early voting went down with the president's attacks. but historically -- actually it used to be a tiny bit in favor of republicans because it tended to be upscale people that were like on business travel or something, the people that would make the extra effort to vote early, 10, 20 years ago. so now it is disproportionately more democratic, but different jurisdictions, some count those first. most count those slower in some places, they can't even start opening the ballots until 8:00 or whenever the polls open that morning as opposed to being able to process them, not tabulate them, which other places do. frankly, if a ballot has come in, came in two weeks ago, run

it through the machine. don't get a total but process it so they can all come in together. but each state has different laws. host: all right. let's go back to our phone lines and talk to cathy calling from texas on the republican line. cathy, good morning. caller: good morning. mr. cook, i would like to remind you, donald trump is not on the wal lot -- ballot. you keep saying donald trump. let's go back to what is going on right now. we all know what the democrats stand for. we are unfortunately living their crazy, communist, socialist policies. not only that, socially they're going after our kids. they're going after our kids. they're trying to make them learn about transgender this and that, with children age 5 and 6 should not have to worry about that. they're telling our white kids to feel bad because they're white. they're making our black kids feel terrible because they're black and black people are

strong, proud people. guest: what school district do you live in, in texas? caller: i live in montgomery county. sir, i am not done yet. then you can respond. there is a lot of social things that the democrats are doing that are -- they're unforgivable. this transgender thing with the children -- sir, i am not done yet. you want to talk about donald trump. there are so many things affecting our children. people can't afford to get milk, gas and it's because of biden. it's not because of trump. trump had a good economy. you keep bringing up trump. take responsibility. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i was curious whether the caller had personally witnessed some of these things in the schools where she lives or does it just hear about this on talk radio or read about it on the internet or something like that? lots of people who say, well, i

understand, but there is no -- you would be hard-pressed to find critical race theory actually taught. young people in an elementary school, public school anywhere in america. but it's sort of become urban legend. but the thing is we are in an interesting time right now where we have -- you have like two heads. joe biden is obviously head of the dimmic -- democratic party and they're the party that has the senate and the white house. donald trump now, he pretty much runs and operates the republican party right now. and particularly if he decides to run again, announce his candidacy next year so that you really have a trump-led republican party and a biden-led democratic party, and that was part of that dynamic, that choice dynamic, that we had in place for a while and why i think republicans have -- one of the things that has improved for republicans in the last couple

weeks that former president trump has taken a lower profile last couple weeks than he has during the summer, which was i think one of the things that gave democrats a little bit of traction for a while with his visibility, right around the mar-a-lago search and all of that. no, i disagree with the caller that -- donald trump was technically not on the ballot in 2018, but yeah he was, and joe biden technically isn't on the ballot in 2022, but yeah, he is. i mean really. so presidents are on the ballot and -- but usually when someone has left the presidency, they sort of step back and wait for -- away from american politics and former president trump has not done that. you do have each party, each party has a party leader right now, and that has -- it created some challenges for republicans when they wanted to keep the focus and should want to keep

the focus on biden and on the democratic majorities in the house and senate and would rather not have -- would rather have more distractions, if you will, than just a referendum up or down on how are we doing? host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to bob calling from new york, new york object the democrat -- on the democrat line. bob, good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, first i want to thank you for saying some intelligent questions earlier. what i was going to bring up was about -- charlie, you mentioned earlier that republicans had unvaifery -- unsavory candidates. democracy is on the ballot, where we are dealing with, you know, election conspiracy, conspiracy thinkers and election

deniers are on the ballot that the republicans keep on putting on and if the republicans get into power as we know, your cook report won't mean anything late irbecause -- later because there won't be fair elections and elections don't matter anymore. you might as well get online for social security, but if republicans are there, the social security won't be there. i want you to understand that we are very upset about that democracy is actually on the ballot. guest: i think it's a mistake or not fair to paint all republicans as election deniers. because there are plenty that aren't. and witness the lost/not stolen document by highly regarded conservative republican leaders. but it is -- we are seeing

election denicer running -- deniers running in key offices where they could affect how elections are counted and certified in the future. that is troublesome. the thing is, it's kind of hard given the atmosphere of what is going on inside the republican party now, it's a challenging situation for a republican elected official or candidate to say, you know, i don't particularly -- i don't agree with president biden. i don't agree with the democratic congress on this, this, and this. i wish they hadn't won, but they legitimately won. you say that and you are basically issuing an invitation for republican primary voters in the future to vote against you or to not turn out in the upcoming election for you. so the question is how many

really believe that the election was stolen and how many people would act in that way if they are in office and in a position where they could affect the count? and so -- but for -- the well has been so poisoned that any republican who doesn't at least articulate the words, well, i am not sure it was a free election is basically inviting the -- opening themselves up to lose voters from their side. it's a horrible situation for them to be in, and you obviously have had some that just said i am not going do that and they've lost their primaries or resigned, not run for re-election. you know, each party -- parties go through difficult times, challenging times. i think right now particularly -- i don't think democrats have covered themselves in glory in how they've handled the economy. on the other hand, i think

republicans in terms of how they're treating the democratic process is also deeply concerning to me. i think there is -- i am troubled by the direction of each of our major parties and yet we are locked into a two party system. we have codified it. there is not going to be a third party successful presidential candidate. the independent third parties can be spoilers but they can't be winners if you have an electoral college or winning 26 delegations in the house if nobody has an electoral college majority. we are stuck in a two-party system with two parties that each one is described up in their own ways. host: one of the things we haven't talked about yet this morning is the effect of the january 6 insurrection on the midterms. this is the first election since the january 6 insurrection and the almost year-long hearing

that they've been holding behind us on capitol hill. will that have any effect on the mid-term elections this year? guest: i think what effect it might have had was sort of probably rolled up in the first couple months. i remember when the hearings were announced thinking, you know, we kind of know what happened and we are not going to learn anything from this. i think we actually did, but i think anybody that was open to be outraged probably were in the first month or two of the hearings. after that, i think it's been kind of baked in the cake. so i don't know that any minds have been changed lately because of january 6. but we are -- there are some really interesting findings in a recent nbc news poll where voters increasingly are putting blinders on. it's like i am choosing not to

hear or see anything bad about any of my own party's candidates. i am just not going to acknowledge that they're there, and i will vote no matter how flawed a candidate from my party is, i am going to vote for him no matter what. you know, but that's sort of where we are now, that people -- the term is negative partisanship where people hate the other party more than they even like their own party. host: let's talk to donna calling from reynoldsburg, ohio, on the independent line. donna, good morning. did i get anywhere close to the name of your town? caller: you said it right. host: i will take that as a victory. guest: where is that? caller: you know, 10 minutes outside of columbus, ohio.

guest: ok. thank you. host: what is your question, donna? caller: i mostly have a comment. i am a true independent. college educated senior, very involved in government, get most of my news from c-span though i do read books. most of my closer friends, because i call myself spiritual but i go to bible groups, and they're mostly republican, what i call trump base. i would never vote for trump. yes, his economy was good. i will grant that. but if i was a good thief, i could have more money, but i thought that the democracy was in trouble. i was open-minded until the end, six months prior i thought he talked like a daik tit -- dictator and then january 6 did it for me. i think since i have been voting in the late 1960's, the republicans have been better on

the economy. we all need money. we don't need to be millionaires. the democrats i think have been better with human rights. i am very pro-choice. so in my state i like our governor, dewine. i think he is a humane republican, good with the economy, too. the two major issues that i find fault with are the gun issue, which he is the stand your ground law and the abortion issue, six weeks, however he is a good moral man. and his opposer i see is a far left socialist and so there is no -- i am going with dewine. vance on the other hand has been in california and -- [laughter] i was going to split the election no matter what because i am pro rights and pro economy. but with vance being out of the

state and then getting trump's approval, i would probably have voted for him no matter what. but that sealed the deal. guest: go ahead and respond to her. guest: i think there are a lot of other ohioanss, we were at a wedding last night and sat with poom -- people from the columbus area. there are an unusally large number of ohioans who are where the caller is, where mike dewine in even remotely competitive states, you see very few with the big leads like mike dewine has in the governor's race there. you look at the senate race which is very close. you don't see a lot of ticket splitters anymore because that's one of the few cases where you will find an enormous gulf between how a gubernatorial

candidate and how the senate candidate for that same party -- how they are performing so far apart because usually it's tracking a lot closer like in georgia, where brian kemp is up some and warnock was up some where you had a small but critical number of people that were splitting the ticket voting republican for governor and democrat for senate. but in ohio, it's like this huge gap. you don't see that as much anymore because people are voting straight party. so this caller, she said she was a pure independent, but you are not seeing that kind of ticket splitting as much as you used to see. host: we haven't talked much about the gubernatorial races going on around the country. there are 36 gubernatorial seats on the ballot in 2022. do we see any trends that we can talk about nationally when it comes to gubernatorial seats? guest: this is the cycle -- yes,

there are a lot of governorships but there aren't that many as i am going through my -- get mieg cheat sheet here out. there aren't as many competitive governorships as we oftentimes see. for example, republicans are going to lose their governorships in massachusetts and maryland, two extremely democratic places that republicans had moderate republican governors that were there for a while. i think in boat cases they did very well, but those governorships are going to revert back to democrats this time. and other than those two, arizona and georgia are the only two republican governorships that are in any kind of danger at all. arizona much more so than georgia, but democrats have to worry, killly -- kelly in kansas, siselak in nevada,

oregon, a legitimate three-way race. how often do you see that with -- republicans have a decent chance of winning a governorship in a very democratic state and tony evers in wisconsin. those are the four top most vulnerable democratic governorships. we are watching second tier, whitmer in michigan, new mexico. there are five top tier governors races out there this year. but they tend to be relatively smaller states. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to lou calling from tampa, florida, on the republican line. lou, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. there is a gentleman, i forget his name in new hampshire, he was talking about irregularities in the last election and that's

fomenting some of the stuff that's been going on with these news outlets. also, the amount of money that's spent on the campaign, it's nauseating and i think citizens united should be rescinded because people are turned off by it. can you hear me ok? host: i hear you fine. caller: ok. i am kind of old school. i remember when you went into a voaing booth, you pulled the levers. i think there was more transparency in that. like they were talking about these ballot boxes in pennsylvania and maybe there was a problem in pennsylvania and around the country. i am not so sure. i am on the fence about that. but people are upset, but people are upset with -- they're not getting things done in washington with affordable

housing and there is a litany of subjects that they're not getting to. but i appreciate your time and yeah, the well is poisoned because people are upset. people are upset, mr. cook. host: go ahead and respond. caller: -- guest: i get that. there is a lot of anger out there. a lot of it is well-founded, but some of it is anger at things that in my opinion don't really exist. if people were angry that votes aren't being counted, well, why do you think they're not being counted? what proof have you seen? any documentation where any elections -- when they did a recount were they found to have been wrong? so to me it's when people are angry about something that actually doesn't exist, that i find a lot more troubling. but yeah, there are lots of things to be upset about. and i think we are not getting

the caliber of people running for elective office that we used to. like who does want to go through the character assassination basically that takes place if you offer yourself up for public office now? i think we aren't getting the same caliber of people we used to and it's because if someone were to step forward, they would be vilified. just on this show, there are some fairly horrible things that have been said by callers about people in the opposite party from whichever they're in that -- who wants that? who needs that? i think we are chasing out a lot of really good people in the process is suffering from it. host: as you well know, the presidential race for 2024 will begin the day the mid-term elections are over. on that wednesday, the presidential race for the republican nomination and

possibly the democratic nomination will begin. what will we learn from the mid-term elections that we can take into 2024? guest: i don't think in terms oc side first. i don't think there is a specific outcome that would have a huge impact on whether president biden seeks another term or not. my guess is, if he is convinced that former president trump is going to run again, that makes him more likely to run. and as much as biden would probably like to run for a second term, if in the absence of trump i think he would probably end of the day not run. i think you would just see a wide open field for the democratic nomination. i don't expect to hear anything decisive from former president trump immediately after this election. i think he may kind of hang out

and let the speculation go and go and go and go and go so that it would leave some other republicans that would like to run if trump doesn't -- leave them hanging, might leave biden hanging a little bit. the thing i am looking to see is does governor desantis jump in like immediately after the midterm and just say i am in and i am not going to wait around and then what happens to other republicans? do any other republicans do that, choosing not to wait around to see whether donald trump runs again or not? we could go deep into next year without trump indicating whether he is going to run or not. that would be, you know, kind of an interesting looking situation. but i would have a hard time imagining trump announcing the week after the midterm, i decided not to run. host: but you could see other republicans jumping in?

guest: i think it takes -- there is sort of the never trump space, the people who are against him, and you will see like a larry hogan or someone like that will jump in. but the question is of the side that's not militantly anti-trump, do they get in, risking alienating the trump people? so that's where -- it would taky bold move for someone to jump in, but i could really see desantis doing that. host: let's see if we can talk to chip calling from trinidad, colorado, on the democrat line. chip, good morning. caller: thanks, good morning. i just wanted to make the comment that to people who are denying the election and agree trump that it was stolen, just think about the fact that he said he was going to appoint only the best people when he got into office, and he did. he appointed a burch of conservative federal judges and up to nine supreme court justices and when it came time

for them to decide whether they agreed with him or not about the election being stolen, they all disagreed with him. 100% of the people along with his vice presidents and attorney general and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. so if anybody thinks that they're depending the constitution by saying that the election was stolen from trump, they're not. they're just granting the wish of a very selfish man. thank you. host: go ahead and respond, charlie. caller: i am trying to decide what to say. as i said earlier on, i think our country is face ago lot of problems -- facing a lot of problems and the integrity of our elections thus far is something that i don't think -- i've yet to hear any convincing arguments whatsoever. it's easy to ask questions and to throw out allegations but to back them up is harder and i haven't seen any of that backed

up. i guess in that sense i am agreeing with the caller that i think at least so far our elections have been decided in a fairway and that there have been very few elections that i think didn't go the way that the plurality of people vote. i think the system is working better than people think and i think there is -- it troubles me when people just raise questions without coming up with proof, literally undermining the foundation of our process of free and fair elections and rule of law and peaceful transfer of power. host: see if we can squeeze in one more. tim is calling from wisconsin on the independent line. tim, good morning. caller: yeah, good morning. thank you for taking my call. i will be real quick here. yeah, i think election deniability is a problem sometimes too, but i keep on

hearing mr. cook talk about all these trump people and trump denying the election. but i don't seem to recall him saying anything in 2016, 2017 and 2018 when hillary clinton, maxine waters are all saying trump was an illegitimate president. i am sure it's just me, but you almost sound a little biased there, charlie. caller: i tell you what. -- guest: i tell you what. it took stacey abrams a long time to abknowledge that -- acknowledge that she did not win the governor's race in 2018. to me that's the sort of analogous situation. you had a lot of democrats that were saying in 2004 that george w. bush didn't really win ohio. it was 119,000 vote margin. you know, in the scheme of things, the size of ohio, it's a pretty close race. but no, this happens -- you've

also had a little bit of it but nothing like we have seen in the last few years. but 1960 election, there were some people that didn't think illinois was on the up and up but richard nixon accepted the outcome, in 1968 it was very close. humphrey accepted the outcome. al gore litigated up to the supreme court and he decided ok, we have lost and moved on. that is sort of the american way of wait until the last vote is counted and last court has made its decision and then you accept it. that's the norm. but no, democrats have done this too, but we have just never had this to the extent that we have had in the last four years. host: well, we would like to thank charlie cook, founder of the cook political report and of national journal for being with

us here this morning and talking about midterms, 2022. charlie, thank you so much. guest: this has been a lot of fun. thanks. host: later on we will be joined by american university professor w. joseph campbell to discuss public opinion polls and the challenges pollsters face in this upcoming mid terms. but first we will go to our open forum where you can call in and talk about your most important political topic. you see the numbers there on the screen. we will start taking your calls in just a moment. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> do all americans have a fundamental right to privacy? tonight a look at the struggles between an individual's right to privacy and the public's right to information with a tulane

propressor. -- professor. her book looks at several cases involving this conflict including hulk hogan's lawsuit in 2016. >> hulk hogan brought a claim for the right to privacy against gawker and he argued that even though it was truthful that his level of pry see then would trump the right of gawker to public that truth and ultimately a jury agreed with him and a lot of people i think in the united states were shocked at that because we understand so much i think about freedom of the press and truth and how truth will protect us and yet this was an instant of someone's privacy then becoming more important in effect, a jury decided, than the public's right to know.

>> tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to all of our podcasts on our new free c-span now app. ♪ >> live, sunday november 6, on in depth, from the texas book festival in austin, the president and c.e.o. of the l.b.j. foundation will be our guest talkin about u.s. presidential history. s books include the last republican and incomparable grace, j.f.k. and the presidency. join in the conversation with your phone calls, faceok comments and texts a tweets. november 6 at noon eastern on in depth on book tv on espn -- c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we back and in our open forum segment where you, our viewers, can call in to talk

about your most important topic of the day. we open up our republican lines. republicans, you can call in at 202-784-8001. dmtion, your number is -- democrats, your number is tun -- 202-748-8000. independents, you can call 202-748-8002. you can always text us your opinion at 202-748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on twitter and on facebook. let's go right to our telephone lines and start with sean, who is calling from florida on the republican line. sean, good morning. caller: yes, hello? host: hi, you are on, sean. caller: yes. my grandmother used to say if you were a good liar, you would make a good politician but don't expect me to vote for you.

it's my opinion that politicians shouldn't be allowed to run this country anymore. i think we should let the american people run this country and their own lives because all the politicians have ever done was screw it up for everybody else. that's why the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer. it doesn't matter what party you are talking about. i am not singling any one person out but i will say this. every party had its liar and thief for a politician and i think the people of this country are getting tired of politicians saying one thing and get in office and do another. and once you thought the last president was bad, the next one makes him look good. host: let geas to robert calling from baltimore on the democrat line. robert, good morning. caller: good morning. i do not have too much to say. but what i am going to say is that donald trump by march of

2023, he will be indicted. and he is going to jail. if he don't get on a plane and leave the country. thank you, american people. host: let's talk to andrew calling from iceland, new jersey, on the independent line. andrew, did i pronounce that correctly? caller: yes, you did. independent but conservative, but the republican party has gotten too extreme for me. i think their policies wind up killing people, women dying from abortion, seniors will die without medicare and social security. children are going to die from assault weapons. mother earth is dying. even democracy is dying with this whole -- with their love for insurrection, qanon, roat keepers. we need to get back to normal

society. these radical republican policies will wind up killing people. host: all right. there are several stories going on that we will bring to you while we wait for you to call in with your most important political topic. law enforcement officials scrambling to figure out what to do about possible physical attacks on lawmakers. i will bring that story to you. law enforcement officials across the country are scrambling to assess the threat of physical attacks on politicians or election officials in the coming days, according to two local officials and two other people familiar with the matter. the growing anxiety comes just one day after speaker nancy pelosi's husband was violently attacked in his san francisco hope. the alleged perpetrator, david depape reportedly entered the house looking for the speaker who was at the time in

washington, d.c. the resulting attack september shock waves through california and the nation's capital and raised difficult questions about the rise of threats against politicians and the precautions being taken to protect them. now law enforcement officials are left trying to grasp whether there could be other threats to high-profile people involved in politics and the scale of those threats, especially in the lead-up to the elections on november 8. the increasing anxiety among local law enforcement comes just one day after the department of homeland security, the federal bureau of investigation, the u.s. capitol police, and the national counterterrorism center issued an intelligence bulletin first reported by politico outlining how vile yint extremists could pose a threat to the midterms, including to election workers. there have been a significant number of recent violent attacks

motivated by rhetoric promoted on extremist forums. the attack on mr. pelosi is just another on a growing list, said john cohen, former counterterrorism chief at d.h.s. these people are troubled, angry people who try to justify violence to their anger. they are consuming content online, put there by domestic and foreign actors. once again this comes from the politico story, law enforcement agencies rush to assess new threats to lawmakers. we are in our open forum segment. we want to know what your most important political topic is. let's talk to dave calling from maryland on the democrat line. dave, good morning. call: good morning. i guess t most important thing to me is the erosion of possibly the democtic process that we know o the republicans are doing everything they can with

election de-- nighers -- deniers, people who could determine elections, overturn elections, and i take this as a personal affront because i am a citizen of this country and when i vote, i expect the vote to be fair, legal. i expect my vote to count as well as my family's. many people gave their lives for democracy and the freedom to vote and i feel the republicans are trying to just minimize it with their denying the election. i mean it's like almost two years, 2 1/2 years, and they're still denying the election. host: leat talk -- let's talk to corniel ya on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. thankfully i am in shock that i am on c-span. i really called in expecting to get a busy signal.

so i don't know how prepared i am. but to be honest with you, i just hope the american people will take with a grain of salt what they hear from the press because 3/4 to 90% of the press and the major television networks are anti-republican, eapt -- eapt trump and they have done nothing but vilify that man and what he was trying to do. he never called for violence in the january 6 insurrection. there is a lot more to what has happened in our nation's capital on that day than the american people know. and i just think it should be looked into. i don't think republicans are trying to overturn any elections in general but they do want open

and fair, honest elections. and as far as the anti-life idea that you can just have an abortion up to the time of birth, that is being promoted in some states, that is killing people already. if we have respect for life as god has allowed us to have life, then everyone will be so much better off because when we respect life from conception to natural death, then all of this violence in our country i believe people in general will have more respect. host: let geas to grant calling from lincoln, nebraska, on the independent line. grant, good morning. caller: hello. thanks for taking my call. today i wanted to rant about the

drug schedule that we have here in the united states that was developed by the d.e.a. in the 1970's under the nixon administration. it was made as a way for the administration to go against the eapt war and the hippies in that time. it just doesn't make any sense when you really look at it. something like marijuana is a schedule 1 drug for some reason, where it's rated just as harmful and addictive as something like heroin where a schedule 2 drug like cocaine and methamphetamine is rated less so. things like what you get from mushrooms and mdma have shown promise for treating vets who are dealing with ptsd and possibly depression, not really sure because the f.d.a. won't allow studies to go on because it's a schedule one status.

it doesn't make any sense and we should be taking a look at that. the republicans don't want to look at it for obvious reasons, and democrats even when they're in power they don't want to look at it either. it doesn't make any sense and i think it's stupid. host: let's talk to devon calling from pittsburgh, pennsylvania on the democrat line. devon, good morning. caller: good morning. i am really curious why everyone seems to have forgotten that the saudi kingdom has decided that they're going to cut millions of barrels of gasoline coming -- or oil coming to the united states. we have the power to punish them by canceling all military contracts that are in the process now and canceling or refusing to permit any future contracts. they are strangling the oil supply which is driving up prices and yet no one seems to be talking about this anymore. the other thing that i find

interesting on this note, there was an article maybe in "the new york times," it could have been "washington post," talking about how many military officials are involved in defense contractor companies. one of the biggest defense contractors, b.a.e. systems, which was a british company until 2001, when they opened an american division, b.a.e. systems has a production facility in saudi arabia. they also have a contract to operate u.s. army ammunition plants such as the radford plant in southwest virginia, such as the plant in -- i think the kingston plant in tennessee. so we have a british company who has pro-- production facilities in saudi arabia oning -- running ammunition plants in the united states of america and at the

radford plant a large percentage of the production there is actually weapons that then get sent to saudi arabia. host: let's go to roy calling from austin, texas, on the republican line. caller: good morning. how y'all doing this morning? host: just fine. go ahead, roy. caller: ok. the thing i want to say is simply this. i listen in every day and i think it is so important that everybody, not just republicans, not just democrats, everybody needs to do their own research and find out things that are factual. for example, this talking point that the republicans are going to take away social security. the fact of the matter is one person brought forth legislation and every other republican shot it down so it's dead legislation but it's a great talking point for the democrats. the hypocrisy in both parties is astounding. i wanted to call in with mr. cook because he had a perfect chance to correct the one gentleman that called in saying they were going to take social security when we all know

the truth about it. but he didn't do it. it blows my mind. host: we would like to thank all of our callers who called in for our open forum segment. coming up next american university professor w. joseph campbell will be here to discuss public opinion polls and the challenges pollsters face in the midterms. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> election day, november 8, starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern watch c-span is' live election night coverage to see which party will control congress. har the results as they happen

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>> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and we are joined by american university communication professor w. joseph campbell, who is here with us today to discuss election polls and the challenges pollsters face in the 2022 midterm elections. joe, good morning. guest: thank you. host: thank you for being with us. you know american voters, we love to complain about polls and how they affect how people vote. with less than i think 10 days until the election day, can we trust the polls that we are seeing right now? guest: i think largeliy but -- largely yes but it depends. sometimes pollings in general are misleading. but i think overall polling gives us at leeks directionally

how things will shake out. what is it going to look like on election day or the day after? in 2020, polls were severely criticized and rightly so for really being off in terms of the popular vote. but directionally they were accurate. they were signaling that joe biden was going to win the popular vote and he did win the popular vote. however, he did not win the popular vote by the margins that many polls expected. some polls had him winning by 10, 11, 12 percentage points and the outcome, the margin of victory was much closer, on the order of 4.5%. so that was a big miss for the pollsters overall. collectively it was the worst performance for polling in 40 years, since 1980 election between ronald reagan and jimmy carter. it depends how you look at the polls. collectively it was a bad performance in 2020. individually, there were some

standouts. emerson college polling was very close, had a 5 percentage point different between biden and trump in the final poll that it did and as i said biden won by 4.5%. that was a close outcome but other polling organizations missed substantially. host: why do we even need political polls? why do they even exist? guest: that's a great question. it's a question that pollsters have asked themselves going back to the early days of modern public opinion research back to the days of george gallup and archibald krosly. these are the guys who emerged as the fathers if you will of public opinion research. they -- george gal up was a defender of election pos. he said -- polls. he said polls were a test for other sorts of survey research because polling is a narrow slice of a much broader approach

to public opinion research and there are issues polling. there is consumer preference polling. there is polling by companies on what consumers are interested in. so polling represents a very small slice of this overall larger picture. gallup thought that election polling was useful because it gave us an acid test as to how all other surveys were working. whether we can rely on them. elmo roper, his rival in the early days of opinion research, had serious doubts about whether or not public opinion polling for elections was even worth the time. he said it was like tearing a phone book in half. it was impressive but in the end it didn't tell us a whole lot. so this debate about why do it, whether it's useful, has percolated through public opinion research and election polling since the earliest days of what we regard as modern survey research. so why do it?

i think it's important to get a sense in a democracy as to how the polls are going, how the election seems to be going, how the campaigns are going. that is not unimportant information in a democratic republic. i think we get directionally speaking how well the polls are doing. sometimes polls are completely off and they just blow it. this comes -- the main election in 2020 comes to mind when susan collins, the republican incumbent, was behind in all the polls, every single poll taken in the run-up to that election and yet susan collins won re-election by more than eight percentage points, abbeys -- an easy win but nothing in the polling that indicated she was going to be re-elected. sometimes we see these anomalies and we saw it overall in the 2020 presidential election when the polls collectively really had a poor performance. host: some of the biggest complaints we hear about polling

is that it can depress or change voting patterns. if someone hears that the polls say their candidate is up, they may say i don't want to vote because we have already won or if someone hears their candidate is down, they say i don't want to take the time to vote. is this a legitimate concern about polling? guest: it's another one of those questions that goes back to the early days of polling. there is perhaps some evidence for it, but many pollsters over the years have doubted whether there was much in the way of a bandwagon effect, which is essentially what you are describing, that yeah we want to get on the bandwagon of the candidate who is going to win this election or conversely a reverse bandwagon effect is if a candidate seems to be behind and clearly losing, why bother? why even go out? or if the candidate seems to be winning, we can stay home because he is definitely going to win the election.

that may have been the case in 1948, the famous or infamous dueey defeats truman election, when harry truman seemed to be destined for an electoral defeat, a repudiation of his presidency, and thomas dewey ran a glide path campaign and didn't really say much in the way that would be controversial or upset people and because the polls done by the likes of george gallup all signaled that dewey was destined to win, in fact roper said he would not release any more poll results in early september, so that's it. i will turn my attention to other more important things he said than the polling of this race. so all the pollsters in 1948 thought dewey was destined to win and it's possible that some republican voters stayed home, didn't turn out in 1948 because the turnout was lower than it

was in the previous election, 194, a wartime election. so it's hard to flesh out, but there seems to be some evidence, indirect evidence, that there is a reverse bandwagon effect. most pollsters dispute whether there is a real strong bandwagon effect in elections because many people go out and say the hell with it. i am going to vote for the candidate i want and i am a card carrying democrat so i am going to vote for the democratic candidate whether that candidate has a chance of winning or not according to the polls. i think that tends to be the impulse, the response more likely than the bandwagon effect. host: let me remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation. we will open up our regular lines. republicans can call in at 202-784-8001. democrats, your number is 202-748-8000. independents, you can call 202-748-8002.

keep in mind you can always text us at 202-748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on twitter and on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. so joe, we have talked a lot about the history of polling. let's talk a little bit about the future. there is concern about the future of polls coming from pollsters themselves. "the new york times" spoke to i want our viewers and reade. to see it. there isn't a polwho doesn't worry about falling response r rates. do i feel like there is a doomsday clock ticking? yeah, i kind of do. but there isn't an alternative that i find that convincing. ge people calling me, how are you going to change your methods? i am not. at some point, those will be famous last words.

i just hope it won't be this election. the american people have changed. we don't have land lines anymore. we have cell phones and caller i.d. how will pollsters get to people in the future? guest: as that comment by ann selzer suggests, there are some pollsters saying no, we are going to stick with random digit dial phone calling, which has been -- used to be the gold standard for election polling. but there is a great deal of, permtation in the field of election polling and a number of pollsters are trying different techniques and different methods, not completely abandoning phone-based calling. but trying things like text to web, getting a text message and then clicking on the link and answering questions on the web. i don't know if -- i don't think that's the next gold standard for polling. when i get those kinds of text,

i tend to delete them quickly. i am curious but i don't spend time with that kind of stuff. there is also robocalling which has been around for a while. panels they recruit panels, online panel, which they go back to respondents time and again, maybe not too often so they don't tire them out, but there are these approaches, these types of things pollsters are experimenting with. just because there is a blend or methodological diversity doesn't mean this is the answer. they're still experting. they still don't have the answer necessarily and each election like the one coming up, what is it next week? host: less than 10 days. guest: is an acid test for polling techniques. pollsters arefor polling technid posters are always -- they are bright people wanting to do the right things. they want to get this correct. they want to give us a sense of

how this election is going to turn out, not maybe down to the decimal point or percentage point, but pretty close. posters don't go out with the expectation that they are going to be getting it wrong. they don't want to get it wrong. they don't want to suffer that embarrassment. polling done well is costly, time-consuming, and uncertain in a lot of ways. you know, it is not something the posters are really casual and blithe about saying, another missed. no, they want to learn from their misses, and these are some of the techniques they are adapting or adopting in this approach, this methodological diversity approach that may or may not give us long-term answers and long-term solutions for the problems in election polling. host: speaking of how costly it is, there is a research poll for the new york times, nate code-1 mentioned it took two hours of dialing -- nate cohen

mentioned it took two hours of dialing to reach one person. does that mean this polling will not be out of control expensive to be done and we will see less of it? guest: that is one reason for the methodological diversity. random digit dial phone: two voter lists or -- phone dialing to voter lists is very uncertain. it takes to harvest a good one completed response. obviously very difficult and expensive. and it is probably not going to be the long-term future of election polling. in fact, it is pretty clear it is not. that is why one reason posters are trying to get different approaches, text to web, robo calling, which has been around for a while, as we know, and panels, online panels. those are among the approaches. they have not really been solidified as everybody is embracing them, as the comment

indicates, but it cannot, the future cannot be random digitized phone dialing. host: i want to get to our calls, but it leads me to this question. experimenting on how their poles work, why should we trust any of them? guest: because they are generally of good faith and trying to get it right. i think directionally they probably will. they are signaling the polls, that the republicans are going to do well in the midterms. whether they win the senate were not is probably still up in the air, but nonetheless, i think they are going to get it directionally correct. polling has always been a pursuit, especially election polling, that is in some flex. back in the early days, it was male in surveys, and then there were door-to-door surveys, so posters are always experimenting

with new approaches. they landed on phone calling because 1960's and 1970's, most people with households had phones and land lines. they landed on a random digit dial approach that would land them in a representative way. most americans had a good chance of being interviewed by a pollster. that was not a bad approach. with the advent of caller id and robo calling and telemarketing, it has had the adverse effect on consumers wanting to enter their phone. if they don't recognize the number, why bother? i kind of share that impulse. host: so do i. i basically unhooked my landline. i never answer because all i get is surveys. guest: there you go. host: polling has always been in a state of flux and experimentation. sometimes they are more experimental than they are now

but it remains to be seen. why trust polls? it is like newsgathering away. george gallup used to say that polling is like the associated press. we are like the associated press of polling, talking to people, getting information, getting data, putting it together in a coherent way, figuring out what it means. polling is still kind of like that. gathering data, gathering information in a logical kind of way. they are using sampling techniques and sampling theory. they are not sampling the whole bowl of chili or the whole batch of chili, just a little bit to see if it is warm and ready to serve or not. polling is like that, sampling a larger population to see how things are going. these organizations do the same thing. news organizations do the same thing. they are talking to people

ideally, ideally, and polling a sort of like that although it is a little more systematic. it is not sort of the impressionistic approach that shoe leather journalism, which is much better rated among journalists. shoe leather journalism tended to be, how do you know you are talking to the right person? kind of the same problem faces polling, but it is a little less dramatic. host: we will come back to that in a second but i want to get our callers in the conversation. let's start with eric, who is calling from new york on the democrat line. eric, good morning. eric, are you there? caller: good morning. host: there you are. caller: i am. can you hear me? hello? host: we can hear you. go ahead. caller: good morning. i have a little bit of a different take on the polling thing. i thought about this topic before. i have taken the past years now

-- when i find people alone, i ask them my personal poll questions. i have two questions i ask people when i find them alone, looking at each other's shoes pumping gas, in the elevator. i graciously and non-provocatively apparently walked up to them and say, excuse me, i am taking a personal poll. do you think most people are nice? that is the question i asked them. and then i ask them a follow-up. after my first 1000 or 1500 -- honestly, i have done nearly 8500 of these. i ask them, what do you think most people told me when i asked them question number one? and at that point, 85% of all these strangers that i have asked, black, white, poor, young, old, pretty, not so, they

gave me the thumbs up on humanity. i had the benefit of looking them in the eye and reading their languages as well as i can . nobody has beaten me about the face for approaching them with such a provocative question or said, you know, did they tell you you were crazy for doing that? no. 85% thumbs up. 13% said no. almost everyone engage me in a nice and civil way through many moon phases and new cycles. i just thought i would put that out there. i stuck my neck out there and continue to because when the news gets me down on television, all i got to do is go out and ask some people what they think. it is contrary to what i am being told. host: go ahead and respond to him. guest: that sounds an awful lot like a variant of shoe leather

journalism, talking to people that are available, people you run into, and asking them questions of them. it is not to say that it is not important or not useful, but it is not representative necessarily. it is more impressionistic. i think it is a temptation to do that kind of polling, but most posters don't do that kind of sampling of their prospective respondents. host: just talking to people you encounter is not exactly scientific. guest: pollsters used to have that problem with what they call quota control sampling way back in the 1940's and 1950's. they used to do a lot of that and have different kinds of criteria for their respondents. the interviewers would go out and look for people who were at a certain age or certain income status that they could tell or whatever, gender, race. those interviewers tended to be going to people who are most easily accessible.

and again, it was not representative at all. it was ease of completion. it is a temptation. it is very tempting to do it that way but not representative. host: we talked about it a lot and journalism as well. who are your reporters talking to? who are you talking to? guest: that's right. are they in position to know? host: exactly. guest: and what do they know? there is a lot of questions about that. host: one of our social media followers has a question about the dark side of polling. this follower says, too many ways polls can be manipulated, like what questions are asked, the way questions are worded, and who was actually po lled. the use poll results to try to sway elections. how can someone tell whether a poll is a legitimate scientific poll or if it is one of these

push polls that is being used to try to sway voters and sway elections? guest: i think asking the pollster for credentials and a little bit of background if you are conducted by a pollster would be one way to do it. the social media user is quite right that polls are fragile and they can go wrong in any number of ways. question wording, question sequence are two well-known ways in which holding can be thrown off. and time of day is another factor. pollsters typically, traditionally like to do it during the day, late in the afternoon, early evening. not so much anymore. they really want to see -- get the people to respond when it is most convenient for them. the point is can polling can go off in a number of directions. the one thing pollsters have never figured out and probably never will is how to determine actually who is going to go vote , who those likely voters are.

because most people when asked by a pollster if you're going to go vote, they will say, yeah. it is the right thing to say, civic duty, and all of that. but many people who answer that question do not go out and vote. for whatever reason. election day is too difficult or they could not get to the early voting place. for whatever reason, there are quite a few people who don't vote who say they are going to. how do pollsters weed out that portion of their sample? that is a real delicate question, a very difficult question. polling organizations sort of each have their own method of just determining likely voters. they are what they called likely voter screens. it is a two-part question. gallup used to have a multipart question asked in the questionnaire about the respondent and whether the respondent was most likely to vote. such things as, have you been

following the election? do you know where your polling place is? did you vote last time? not tell me how you voted, but did you vote? these are some examples of likely voter screens that pollsters use to get a sense as to who their audience looks like it could be in terms of the likely votes, who is most likely to turn out and vote. it is art. it is more art than science, and pollsters will typically acknowledge that and have acknowledged it a long time. it is not something the posters ever resolved and it is far too complicated to resolve. it is too much to ask of them to really determine with precision who the likely voters are. because you don't want to have people in your sample who are not going to vote. you want to weed them out however you can. that is a real conundrum for pollsters and has been for quite a long time and remains a conundrum. host: let's go to the phone lines and talk to jeremiah, who

is calling from mount laurens, pennsylvania, on the republican line. jeremiah, good morning. caller: morning. well, first of all, i would like to say that all of these attacks on public officials, there is one person probably responsible for it. and it is probably the former president that is responsible for all these things going on. second of all, i think probably i would hope that probably the midterms i think the democrats will do usually pretty well, but on the off year they usually don't do well. but this year, it is kind of like a weird year. they are all campaigning. like the republicans are campaigning to put trump back in there and things like that. no, they can't do that. and like marjorie greene and

lauren boebert, they are going to impeach biden but they don't know what for. host: you have a question about polling, jeremiah? caller: what? host: do you have a question about polling? caller: yeah. the holding, it is an interesting year for that. you just never know what is going to happen. guest: that speaks to ever likely voter issue we just spoke to a moment ago. who is going to turn out? a lot rests on that equation. it is impossible to know what that electorate will look like until it shows up in votes. it is a short-lived phenomenon. a little longer now that we have early voting. but still, it is really difficult to know who is going to show up. you can get a sense through the likely voter screens pollsters used but it is not a precise

science. not a precise science. the caller mentioned the midterms. it is true. there are headwinds for the democrats this midterm. this election, this second year in a term election for a president, happens to be difficult for the president's party traditionally. and i think with kitchen table issues on top of that, people are concerned about inflation, the economy, gas prices, crime in some places too. those are tough issues. those are tough issues to go against in terms of the headwinds the democratic candidates are facing. whether we will see seats open up and be competitive in the last nine or 10 days of the election remains to be seen. some polling suggests even places like washington state,

where patty murray has been the incumbent for quite a while, she is a solid democrat and looks like she will win reelection, but there have been recent polls and suggestions she might be in some jeopardy. i don't think that is the case. i don't think that is the case. i think you look at the 50% threshold. if an incumbent has close to 50%, like 49%, and the polls are 50% in the poll, the incumbent is likely to win the election. patty murray is still there at the 49%, 50% range in the average polls. but the kitchen table issues tend to be difficult for democrats to run against. they represent headwinds for candidates. interesting election, as the caller suggests. host: have social media and 24 hour news changed how people see polling? for example, we had charlie cook

on earlier and he was saying earlier in the summer the polls were saying the democrats had headwinds like you said, but now the polls are saying things are getting acted normal. polls are just a snapshot of a moment in time. people can change their mind after a poll, right? guest: that's right. a snapshot is one way to characterize polls. that characterization becomes a refuge for posters. if there poll is off, it was a snapshot in time and might have been right at the time the poll was taken. i don't think that is a legitimate excuse. i think they are trying to spin things in a way that is a little unrevealing. plus, the snapshot in time in an election like this, election season like this, there will be lots of snapshots, lots of poll s. almost too many. how do you follow the stuff? all these snapshots in time add up to a panorama. and that panorama should tell us

something, directionally at least, about how the election is going to go, who is going to win. does herschel walker in georgia have a real chance against the incumbent raphael warnock,? so we get these snapshots, add them together, we get a nice panorama and a good sense. by election day, we should have a pretty good sense who is going to win. the closer you get to an election, the more expectation is that the poll will be accurate, the higher the expectations are for polls. snapshot in time up to a point. up to a point. host:host: let's talk to valerie, who is coming from florida on the independent line. valerie, good morning. caller: yes, sir. first, i would like to thank you for taking my call. i have a couple things to say in regards to your pollsters. robo calls are no better than traditional telemarketers. you block the number and ask them not to call but they continue to do so. i doesn't matter what you do in that respect.

holding is not a guarantee when it comes to the actual election time. as you said just a minute ago, sir, people do change their minds. it is a big thing. it is getting crazy too. last season, i had people calling me until 11:00 at night. regular telemarketing, that is against the law. they are taking in a little further than they really should. in a number of respects when it comes down to the actual elections, the american people honestly never vote for the most qualified, only the most convincing that can get in office. and then they go to their own agenda after they are in the office. i personally feel president biden needs to go home and take a nap and get his faculties. have a great day. thank you so much. guest: polls are not necessarily etched in concrete. a better way to think of them is the polls are estimates on an

election outcome. they are not really predictions, although some prediction models make use of polls and use them as a way to forecast elections, which is an important component of a pre-election environment. but polls themselves are best out of estimates as to how things are going to go. the behavior of pollsters, the american association, which is a traditional organization representing polling interests and pollsters themselves, would frown upon those kinds of techniques the caller described, calling at 10:00, 11:00 at night. that is really pushing it on polling. it is not something many pollsters would embrace, i don't believe. robo calling is not the answer to polling's problems. it is one approach, one element of methodological diversity that

some pollsters are experimenting with. but it is not going to be the way we are going to be moving ahead because i don't know if people have land lines, and it is difficult to make robo calls on cell phones. host: you have told me before you are not a pollster, but i will ask you to speak for them for one second. why should americans participate in polls? why should we answer the poll when they call? guest: it is a great question, fundamental question, central question about survey research in general. if you think about it, it is kind of head scratching. a columnist in britain a few years ago wrote that calling it a poll is a bizarre enterprise because you are calling strangers, giving them information, and they don't reward you are competent you in anyway way for the information you have given them. and they will try to profit on that. down to its fundamentals, polling is kind of like that.

they rest on kinds of strangers in a way. why would people respond? i don't know. maybe for the novelty. maybe for the enjoyment of talking to a pollster about their preferences. there used to be in chicago a well-known columnist for "the chicago tribune." occasionally he would go on the campaign to live to pollsters so we can make them look bad on election night. it was kind of naive because not enough people would be getting that kind of message or responding to pollsters, but it is emblematic of one of the responses journalists used to have visa be polling. there used to be some prominent poll bashers among journalists. jimmy breslin was another columnist and writer in new york who was a poll basher. every other huffington, another poll basher.

she had a campaign to rid america of polls, as she called it. journalists have some qualms about polling themselves and yet journalists or news organizations themselves are big-time pollsters. since the big 1970's, even before that, journalism organizations and newsgathering organizations were in polling big-time and they are today. look at all the polls out there that are done by or commissioned by prominent news organizations. you just go down the list. the wall street journal, the new york times, cnn, these are among the many media organizations that are into polling. it is kind of -- some journalists and news organizations have suspicions and reservations about polling, but on the other hand, news organizations are in polling big-time. host: let's talk to melissa, who was calling from maryland on the democrat line. alyssa, good morning -- melissa, good morning.

ok, it seems we cannot get to melissa. let's go to scott. there you are, melissa. caller: yes. host: glad we got through to you. caller: yes. i wanted to ask the guest a couple of questions. one of my question is -- i am gen x, and i know gen xers don't answer the phone or volunteer any information. i am looking at changing voter demographics where gen z and younger millennials are going to overtake the boomers. i feel like boomers are overrepresented in polls because they answer the phone and are willing to give out that information, but are there young people represented in the polling industry that have ideas that can change things? and two, what do you think of exit polling to determine who is going to be the new average voter since it is not being

captured on phones and things like that? thank you. guest: you know, exit polling has had some problems. it used to be regarded as, hey, this is the great way to know how voters have voted. essentially, exit polls are done as voters leave the polling place. with early voting, there is some modification to that. exit polling used to have a really good reputation. it kind of lost its great reputation in 2004, when exit polls clearly demonstrated that john kerry, the democratic candidate, was going to unseat george w. bush fairly easily, by three or four points. the exit polls were wrong. exit polls were wrong, but they were believed during the day. news organizations had them and released them. george w. bush was given the exit polls and moped around the white house saying my presidency is lost. i am repudiated just like my dad was after one term.

at 7:00 on election night, based on the election polls, one of john kerry's top aides in an elevator going down at the hotel they were at, he looks at him and looks him in the eye and says, mr. president. kerry, said, no, too early. 7:00 on election night, you have a good idea who is going to win. exit polls are based on the reactions and expectations and exit polls were off in a lot. it was not until late at night or early in the morning the day after when exit polling was clearly shown to be off and the adjustments were made and bush won the election very narrowly. i think maybe two points. ohio was in play because there were doubts about election integrity in ohio, which is the pivotal state. if bush won that state, he won the electoral college. but it was a close matter not decided until the day after the election.

exit polls used to have the reputation. not so much anymore. in 2016, exit polls were indicating hillary clinton would win in florida, south carolina, ohio, and she lost those along with pennsylvania and michigan, which represented what was going to keep her candidacy from losing the electoral vote. but trump won those very narrowly. and the polls did not pick up on that switch, the late in the campaign switch to trump in 2016 in the three key states, which wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. had hillary clinton won those states, she would have won the presidency. polls can go bad in a lot of different ways. they are kind of like tolstoy unhappy families. he wrote unhappy families that they are happy in their own way.

polls can go wrong, can go awry in a lot of different ways. they can expect landslides and a closer election, which was the case in 2020. state polling can screw up national expectations, which is the story of 2016. exit polls can go wrong, which is the story of 2004. polling is a fragile undertaking. i am not sure that is understood by pollsters and the broader audience in american public much recognize how fragile public polling can be and how it can go off and go awry in a number of ways. host: i don't want to let you go without talking and little bit about your book. you talk in your book about who is doing the polling. in the past, it was big organizations like pew and gallup. who is doing the legitimate polling we are seeing right now, quickly? guest:guest: i mentioned news

organizations a few moments ago that are really into polling big-time. these are major news organizations nationally as well as leading regional organizations that are doing state-level polling. these are not necessarily new but it is more pronounced. that is one answer to your question. another answer is universities and colleges are really into polling in an impressive way. i mentioned emerson college early on. it is one of several colleges and universities in polling. in connecticut, new jersey, they are doing polling. and in upstate new york. these are all well-regarded, well-recognized polling organizations. in some cases, they started from class projects and became this ongoing research center. in america where i teach at a couple colleagues and i ruminated from, why don't we start the american poll? it starts like a great thing to

do. we can get the name and market it in that respect. but it would be nothing more than faculty lounge ruminations. it is expensive. it is time-consuming. it is agony to do polling and do it well. i am not going to do it. host: we would like to thank w. joseph campbell, the communication professor at american university, and author of "lost in a gallup," for being with us this morning a talking bout polling in midterm election. you for being here. guest: it is a real pleasure. host: we would like to thank all of our guests, collars, social media followers for another great "washington journal." we will see you again tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m.

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>> next, john kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate issues on the climate change summit. then supreme court justice samuel alito talks about roe v. wade and defend the high court's legitimacy. and on the midterms and how senate and -- and on senate and gubernatorial races. >> next, the special envoy for climate issues, john. talks about renewables, deforestation and highlights the goals into the cup 27 -- cop 27 summit. this is one hour.