James Carville—a top Democratic strategist—admitted he was wrong about the 2024 election in a new opinion piece for The New York Times.
Carville, a Democratic political consultant, said in his Thursday opinion piece that he was “wrong” in thinking that Vice President Kamala Harris would win the election over now-President-elect Donald Trump. In the lead up to the election, Carville repeatedly predicted that Harris would clinch the White House.
“I thought Kamala Harris would win. I was wrong. 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,’” Carville wrote.
He wrote that he spent the two months after the election thinking about what went wrong for Harris and the Democrats. He concluded that it was the economy that drove voters toward Trump.
“We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is and it always will be the economy, stupid. We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else,” Carville wrote.
Many Democrats have grappled with why Trump prevailed over Harris in November’s election. Many pundits and experts pointed to Americans’ negative views on the economy as one of the top reasons that the incumbent party lost.
Carville made a similar argument, noting that while the U.S. economy is the “strongest in the world,” Americans did not want to “settle.”
“Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative. The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back. 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,” he said.
He said Democrats must focus on switching their narrative on the economy as well as shifting their overall messaging strategy. He said the Democratic Party should stop focusing on Trump and focus on “opposing the unpopular Republican economic agenda.”
Carville also noted that the media landscape has changed, with many Americans turning to podcasts or online social media users to get their information.
He concluded his piece with two pieces of advice for 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls.
“Our economic message must be sharp, crisp, clear — and we must take it right to the people. 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,” he said.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
