Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs
Director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics

Sabato's Crystal Ball: Elections Past and Future

According to The Wall Street Journal, Larry J. Sabato is "probably the most quoted college professor in the land," and the Washington Post calls him "the Mark McGwire of political analysts."

Dr. Sabato is Director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, and along with being the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs, he is one of just a half-dozen University Professors at U.Va. He is a former Rhodes Scholar and Danforth Fellow.

After he received his B.A. in government from the University of Virginia as a Phi Beta Kappa in 1974, he did a year's graduate study in public policy at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Upon receipt of the Rhodes scholarship in 1975, he left Princeton to begin study at Queen's College, Oxford University. In less than two years he received his doctorate in politics from Oxford and was invited to become a tutor (instructor) for students in the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) program. In January 1978 he was elected Lecturer in Politics at New College, Oxford. He joined the faculty at the University of Virginia in September 1978.

Dr. Sabato has appeared on dozens of nationally broadcast television shows, including "60 Minutes", "Nightline", "Face the Nation", "The Today Show", "Good Morning America", "48 Hours", "Larry King Live," and "The Jim Lehrer News Hour." He has had the privilege to teach approximately 13,000 students during his career.

Dr. Sabato has served on many national and state commissions, including the National Commission for the Renewal of American Democracy; the U.S. Senate Campaign Finance Reform Panel; the Governor's Commission on Campaign Finance Reform, Government Accountability, and Ethics; and the Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education.

Dr. Sabato is the recipient of more than two dozen major scholarships, grants, and academic awards, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, the Outstanding Young Teacher Award from the University of Virginia, and Outstanding Professor Award from the Virginia State Council of Higher Education, the U.Va. Outstanding Professor Award of 2000, and inclusion among the "Top-Ten-All-Time Favorite Teachers" by U.Va.'s Alumni Association.

His visiting appointments include that of Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution and Thomas Jefferson Visiting Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge University, England.