Larry Sabato
Appearances
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And of course, independents have turned pretty strongly against Trump. That's why his ratings have been falling, and they'll fall more once the independents, who are not paying attention, figure out what's going on. They're the group of voters that will switch without much push or pressure. depending on the circumstances of their lives, like the economy, but not just the economy.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
What influences them is what helps them in their daily lives. They're heavily concentrated in middle class and lower middle class. And those independents, as I say, are busy earning a living or busy living their lives. They don't have a lot of extra time. They certainly don't pay attention to public affairs as much as they should.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Well, there's a bit of a satirical element to a crystal ball. Our slogan is, he who lives by the crystal ball ends up eating ground glass. And we've had plenty of ground glass like every other analyst, so I don't want to pretend that we've always been right. Anyway, what are we predicting so far?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
It would be nearly impossible to predict that Republicans would hold the House, although we've just published an analysis in the crystal ball from some distinguished political scientists who have used another measure that has been ignored for the most part. What does the public think will happen? Which party do they believe will hold on?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Well, it's early, but even the early predictions often have been right from the public. And they seem to think Republicans will hang on to both the House and Senate. I don't buy it. Some of my colleagues do. I think the odds are substantial that Democrats will carry the House. We don't know the margin. We can't even guesstimate the margin. I think it could go up to around 20 seats.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Frightening. And it could get a lot worse before it gets better. And a lot of the damage being done to the governmental structure, which we spent decades as a people putting together, will take a generation or more to repair. I don't think anyone doubts that. There's a lot of it will have to be repaired because it's not working out and it won't work out.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
If it's an anti-Trump landslide, obviously higher than that, more than that, as it was in 2018. But the Senate, there's a tiny chance Democrats could take control. But look at the map. You know, the normal balance in the Senate, if you look at the map, according to the red and blue divisions that exist in America today, is about 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
So Democrats really do have to be riding something of a wave, probably in two elections, to take control of the Senate again, because the normal majority is about what they have right now, 53-47 for the Republicans. That's because of the system the founders set up, which I published a book, A More Perfect Constitution, 23 Changes to the Constitution.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Not one of them has happened since I published a book in 2007. It's been very hurtful to me personally, but I don't think the Senate should be structured the way it is. When you have four senators from two Dakotas And I've spent some time in both Dakotas, and you can't tell them apart. I'm sorry. There's no reason why they should have four senators.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
But with enough red states, small rural states, the Republicans have to try to lose the Senate. Now, gubernatorially, there is a real chance for democratic breakthrough, but they also have to hold close states, competitive states that they have, like Michigan and Arizona and so on.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
But they could score some surprising victories there as off-year elections when people are just, as I think they will be, dead sick of Trump and the Trump appeasers or Trump acolytes or Trump minions that are in office.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
I rage about a lot of things, but mainly it's my age. Probably because I watch more TV news than I ever have before.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
It's okay. It's really social media more than it is TV. TV funnels what's selling on social media, I think, more than the reverse. That makes me rage. There's nothing we can do about social media. I wish we could. I gave up on flying cars, but we were promised a time machine, and we still don't have one because I'd like to go back and make it impossible to create social media.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
I don't know how I'd do it, but I would try to do that in addition to preventing assassinations and lots of other terrible things. We can't survive for the long term the way we are now. We really can't. And I wish people would focus on that. I know it's hard.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
As Scott was saying earlier, it's very difficult to get people to care about democracy enough to make it an issue or the issue in an election. I completely agree that that is true for now. It ought not to be true after January 6th.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Maybe the Democratic Party would do better just rerunning the films of January 6th instead of the crap they put out there on TV ads, the clever TV ads that pay the consultants enormous fees. Just remind people what was at stake and what could have happened.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And in the recesses of his mind, you're not going to tell me that he isn't thinking of ways to continue his regime, either with him or with somebody that he trusts, a member of his family or maybe J.D. Vance, I don't know, in four years. And I'm even worried about 2026. What can his CISA do? The organization in DHS that looks at cybersecurity and they know how the system works.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And what really worries me and I think worries everybody is as we move closer to elections, maybe it's 2026, I think it's much more likely to be 2028, things we've taken for granted, we can't take for granted anymore. It's entirely possible that Trump is going to find ways and means either of staying in power himself or
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And if you have an honest head of CISA, they make it work better and they make sure that foreign influences are not guiding our elections. But if you have someone who has bad motives and who is listening to the devils in the Oval Office, then it is possible to tilt even a midterm election. We all need to watch everything carefully. We have to. It's a matter of our survival as a republic.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
That was a long answer. I got to it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Okay. But it's a podcast, you know.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Thank you very much. And you got me raging. I hope you're happy. There you go.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
or if not guaranteeing, then assisting, whether it's Vance or I don't think it would be Rubio, it might be Rubio or one of his sons to succeed him. Now, I hope that that won't happen. I hope we're better than that. I hope there are enough checks and balances left to make sure it doesn't happen. But we can't assume these things anymore.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Well, democracy. It's fundamental to everything that we have done as a people and will do as a people, I hope. And look, I can get as upset as anybody about renaming the Gulf of Mexico or the possibility of invading Greenland. But what I'm really worried about is that we'll no longer have a society that can work together on at least some big issues. And we are just deeply, deeply divided.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And I've been around, getting ready to turn 73. I remember the 60s when we had a lot of polarization and division. But this is much worse. This goes right to the fundamentals. And people don't agree on the fundamentals anymore, or they're willing to follow a cult leader. And when the cult leader says, these rules don't apply to me, they applaud.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
So, yes, that is what bothers me more than anything else, though I would dispute a lot of the things that Trump and Musk have done.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
The accumulation of power in the Oval Office and a tiny group of aides around him, some of whom are even more extreme than Trump. I don't think Trump is extreme in the old sense of the word. He's just all for himself. His personal pronouns are me, myself, and I. But the people around him
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
clearly want to amass as much power as possible, as early as possible, and head off all of the checks and balances. So what am I most concerned about? I would say the potential for ignoring court decisions, which is very real. They're trying to eat at the edges of this with some of the moves they've already made. That would worry me more than anything else.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
But I'm concerned about everything you mentioned. We all want to be concerned about all of that because it all fits together. It's all roads lead to the Oval Office, except that's not what the founders wanted. And it's not how we practice politics for all of these years.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Well, at base, it's civic education, which is what my Center for Politics is dedicated to and is trying to do something about at the lowest possible levels, meaning starting in kindergarten and going through at least high school and maybe junior colleges as well. You have to teach people. how to interpret the system. And they have to be willing to pay attention.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
They have to be willing to remember that citizenship in America doesn't require very much anymore, but at a very minimum, it requires that citizens pay attention to big events. And they don't. I think the New York Times had a piece of a poll recently over the weekend where they separated Americans into people who follow the news carefully and people who don't.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And the people who followed the news carefully were much more critical of Trump and much more concerned about what he was doing. And the people who didn't follow what was happening in the news thought a lot of what Trump was doing was just fine. They were much more inclined to support him. And that is potentially fatal to a system like ours. We've got to work on it. Everybody's got to work on it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Most universities have a center like mine. We all ought to be working together on it. High school and elementary school teachers have to work together on it. We started this 25 years ago, and we were able to get in the schools fairly easily. In fact, the superintendents and principals welcomed us because we were providing all the information they needed to for free. They paid for nothing.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
They used what they wanted to use. Now, we can't even get our foot in the door because it's political. They're worried about offending their Republican governors or their Republican legislatures or, goodness knows, the Trump administration in Washington. And I've seen it everywhere. I've seen it here. People hunker down. They don't want to challenge things.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
They feel strongly about something, but they won't speak out about it. That has never been a part of university life around the country. It is now. Fear is everywhere, which is exactly what the Trump administration has been trying to do. And they are succeeding.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Yes.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Let's start by remembering Democrats don't control the House. Even if it's five votes, we're so partisan today. The five votes is enough to govern, as I think they'll prove again with that big, beautiful bill. They don't control the Senate. They do have some influence there when 60 votes are required, but they don't control it. They don't control the White House.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
They don't control even federal agencies that are supposed to be independent, much less the rest of the bureaucracy. They don't control half of the states, a little more than half of the states and the legislatures. They don't control the Supreme Court, which is still tilted Republican, even if occasionally one or two of them will break with the Trump preferences. So they control nothing.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And in a situation like that, you have to control your forum first because you don't have anything else. You have to spend a lot of time and energy and effort looking toward the next election, which they should be doing more of rather than less of. That's their chance to regain the House.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
It would take a massive landslide wave against Trump to take control of the Senate, given the seats that are up. But they can at least focus on the House. And I think a 10-, 15-, 20-seat majority is entirely possible. The way they're going, they'll be lucky to have the five-seat majority that Republicans have right now.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
But once you have some piece of the government that you control, you control the schedule, you control a lot of the issues that come before it, you can have a greater impact.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
But for right now, other than focusing on the elections, which to me is the most important thing by far, you want to find ways to attract media attention and therefore the public's attention, at least those who will pay minimal attention to what the media are covering. And you do that by clever actions, by protests that are, yes, intense, maybe involving civil disobedience, nonviolent.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
I always add that because somebody's going to write me and say, oh, he's pushing violence. Of course not. Nonviolent civil disobedience has had a major impact on American history. There should be some of that. There needs to be some of that. So it's tough to say. I can tell you what they shouldn't be doing. I can't stop laughing about Chuck Schumer's tough letter. Yeah.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
really tough, tough language to President Trump as though he reads anything. That's what they think opposition is. And I don't mean just to criticize Schumer, because it's really a party-wide problem. And the leadership is, and I'm saying this as a guy getting ready to turn 73, so I'm a senior, it's way too old. The democratic structure is way too old.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
They need a lot more younger people who won't take no for an answer. And yes, a good number of people who do what we used to do in the 60s and 70s, issue a list of non-negotiable demands, all of which you will negotiate in time.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
But you have a list of non-negotiable demands and you organize around it and you get people energized about it and activated about it because the Democratic Party and the Democratic constituency is half dead. And I'm being kind.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
You want to start by saying any anti-Semitism is wrong, and we had a little bit of it here. It was relatively minor compared to other universities. And while it's a legitimate concern, and it's worse in some places, and it deserves a lot of focus, and it's getting it as far as I can see, it's also a cover story for the Trump administration. They're using that. That is not a reason to
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
to limit what universities can investigate or to withdraw grants that are looking into terrible diseases, people will die because of all of this withdrawn money. It's not wasted money. In fact, if you want money well spent, you generally go to the health side of a university. So it's a cover story to some degree.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
I tell you what people should focus on more. It's not just Trump. It's where he's reinforced by Republican governors and or Republican legislators. In most of the states, the governors appoint most or all of the board of trustees, or we call it a board of visitors here, for public institutions. Private institutions do it a different way. But they appoint people who are going to push their agenda.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And today, the Republican Party agenda is Donald Trump and whatever he stands for. There are so few Republicans who will stand up. I should say there are so few ex-Republicans who will stand up to Trump, because if they weren't ex-Republicans at the beginning, they'll be ex-Republicans once MAGA takes care of them.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
And that's the real problem, because you have the states reinforcing what the Trump administration is doing in the slight majority of the states where they control the appointments. So it's tough.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Again, elections matter, and most of the focus has to be on winning the next election, not just for the House and the Senate in Washington, but also for the state legislatures and the governorships that are up. And most of them are up in 2026 as an off-year election.