Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times on Thursday that he knows exactly why his party’s candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, lost November’s election to newly elected President Donald Trump.
And he revived his famous quote to drive home 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 re-election bid in late July, Carville sounded alarm bells about the election, pointing to polls showing Americans were deeply concerned about giving an 82-year-old another four-year term.
But he thought the Democrats would change course and predicted before November 5 that putting Harris at the top would have changed the situation.
“I thought Kamala Harris would win,” they wrote in The Times. “I was wrong.”
“The Democrats have completely lost the economic story,” he continued. “The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back.”
Biden – and later Harris – would, under Trump’s watch, tout the country’s economic gains since the economic collapse caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
James Carville, a veteran Democratic strategist, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times on Thursday that he knows exactly why his party’s candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, lost November’s election to President-elect Donald Trump.
But Americans were still plagued by high grocery and gasoline prices and fondly remembered Trump’s pre-COVID economy.
During his campaign, Trump promised to restore these gains if he were re-elected.
“Perception is everything in politics, and many Americans see us as wanting to take the economy to lunch, without feeling their pain, or otherwise worrying too much about other things,” Carville said.
The 80-year-old had some ideas about how his party could get it together.
“While Democrats have virtually no chance of passing a bold, progressive economic agenda over the next four years, we can force Republicans to oppose us,” the former Clinton aide noted. “We must go on the attack with a wildly popular and populist economic agenda that they cannot support.”
“Let’s start by forcing them to oppose raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Let’s make Roe v. Wade a matter of economic reporting – and force them to block our efforts to pass this into law,” Carville said. “And let’s take back the immigration issue by making it an economic issue — and force the Republican Party to reject bipartisan reforms that will expedite entry for high-performing talent and those who will bring business to our country.”
The immigration issue has already splintered the MAGA movement, with Trump siding with tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who support H1-B visas for highly skilled immigrant workers.
Trump’s more traditional advisers, including Steve Bannon, oppose the visas, saying they deprive Americans of opportunity.
Vice President Kamala Harris shown during her concession speech after the 2024 presidential election on November 6, 2024. Carville said Harris – who he predicted would win the race – lost because she did not address Americans’ economic concerns.
“This year, the Democratic Party leadership must convene and release a creative, popular and bold economic agenda and proactively take back our economic ground,” Carville continued. ‘Go big, go populist, stick to economic progress – and force them to oppose what they cannot be for. In unison.’
Carville also urged Democrats to take their message where listeners lived – primarily podcasts – seen as one of the key elements of Trump’s successful election strategy.
“For Democratic presidential hopefuls, your 2028 auditions should be based on two things: 1) how authentic you are about the economy and 2) how well you convey that on a podcast,” Carville noted.
Carville knows a thing or two about pulling Democrats out of the political wilderness.
He helped President Bill Clinton win his 1992 presidential campaign — which returned Democratic control to the White House after 12 years of Republican rule.
“The path forward couldn’t be more certain: we live or die by winning public perception of the economy,” Carville said.
“That’s how it was, that’s how it is and that’s how it will be forever,” the veteran strategist added.