(Headline USA) Democratic strategist James Carville admitted this week he was wrong about the 2024 election and Vice President Kamala Harris’s chances.
“I thought Kamala Harris would win. I was wrong,” Carville wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times this week.
“While I’m sure we Democrats can argue that the loss wasn’t a landslide or take a little solace in our House performance, the most important thing for us now is to face that we were wrong and take action on the prevailing ‘why,’” he added.
The reason Harris lost was simple, the 80-year-old Carville said, riffing on his famous 1992 line explaining the appeal of former President Bill Clinton.
“It was, it is and it always will be the economy, stupid,” he wrote. “We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else.”
In the lead-up to Election Day, Carville wrote a different op-ed for the New York Times laying out three reasons he was “certain” Harris would defeat President-elect Donald Trump. He also made the prediction repeatedly on air, arguing Harris would win because Trump is “stone a** nuts.”
But that wasn’t enough to overcome Trump’s economic messaging, Carville admitted in hindsight.
“Mr. Trump, for the first time in his political career, decisively won by seizing a swath of middle-class and low-income voters focused on the economy,” Carville wrote. “Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative. The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back.”
Democratic presidential hopefuls for 2028 musst develop campaign messaging that is based on “1) How authentic you are on the economy and 2) how well you deliver it on a podcast,” Carville urged.
“The road ahead will not be easy, but there are no two roads to choose from,” he added. “The path forward could not be more certain: We live or die by winning public perception of the economy.”
