James Carville accepts he was wrong about the 2024 election and reveals why Kamala Harris lost

By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-02 20:49:58 | Updated at 2025-01-05 03:55:21 2 days ago
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By NIKKI SCHWAB, CHIEF CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 20:31 GMT, 2 January 2025 | Updated: 20:35 GMT, 2 January 2025

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville wrote in a New York Times op-ed Thursday that he knows exactly why his party's nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, lost November's election to President-elect Donald Trump.

And he resurrected his famous quotation to make the point.

'We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is and it always will be the economy, stupid,' Carville said.

Months before President Joe Biden pulled the plug on his reelection bid in late July, Carville was sounding alarm bells about the election, pointing to polling that showed Americans were seriously concerned about handing an 82-year-old another four-year term.

But he thought Democrats would pull off the bait-and-switch, predicting ahead of November 5th that putting Harris atop the ticket had turned things around.

'I thought Kamala Harris would win,' the wrote in The Times. 'I was wrong.'

'Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative,' he continued. 'The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back.'

Biden – and later Harris – would tout the country's economic gains since the economic collapse caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, under Trump's watch.

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville wrote in a New York Times op-ed Thursday that he knows exactly why his party's nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris , lost November's election to President-elect Donald Trump 

But Americans were still being battered by high grocery and gas prices and fondly remembered Trump's pre-COVID economy.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to bring those gains back should he be reelected.

'Perception is everything in politics, and a lot of Americans perceive us as out to lunch on the economy – not feeling their pain, or else caring too much about other things instead,' Carville said.

The 80-year-old had some ideas for how his party could get it together.

'While Democrats have next to no chance of passing a bold, progressive economic agenda in the next four years, what we can do is force Republicans to oppose us,' the former Clinton aide noted. 'We must be on the offensive with a wildly popular and populist economic agenda they cannot be for.'

'Let's start by forcing them to oppose a raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Let's make Roe v. Wade an economic messaging issue - and force them to block our attempts to codify it into law,' Carville said. 'And let's take back the immigration issue by making it an economic issue - and force the G.O.P. to deny bipartisan reform that expedites entry for high-performing talent and for those who will bring business into our nation.'

The immigration issue has already splintered the MAGA movement, with Trump siding with tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy who back H1-B visas for high-skilled immigrant laborers.

Trump's more traditional advisers, including Steve Bannon, are against the visas saying they take opportunities away from Americans.

Vice President Kamala Harris shown at her concession speech after the 2024 presidential election on November 6, 2024. Carville said that Harris - who he predicted  would win the race - lost because she didn't address Americans' economic concerns 

'This year, the Democratic Party leadership must convene and publish a creative, popular and bold economic agenda and proactively take back our economic turf,' Carville continued. 'Go big, go populist, stick to economic progress - and force them to oppose what they cannot be for. In unison.'

Carville also pushed Democrats to take their message where listeners lived – mainly podcasts – seen as one of the key elements of Trump's successful election strategy.

'To Democratic presidential hopefuls, your auditions for 2028 should be based on two things: 1) How authentic you are on the economy and 2) how well you deliver it on a podcast,' Carville noted.

Carville knows a thing or two about getting the Democrats out of the political wilderness.

He helped President Bill Clinton win his 1992 presidential campaign – which brought Democratic control back to the White House after 12 years of Republican rule.

'The path forward could not be more certain: We live or die by winning public perception of the economy,' Carville said.

'Thus it was, thus it is and thus it forever shall be,' the longtime strategist added.

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