James Carville, the longtime political consultant known for his work on former President Bill Clinton’s campaign, said during The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Politically Georgia Monday broadcast that he believes Democratic nominee Kamala Harris will win.
“Usually elections get a little momentum, a push at the end,” said Carville, 80. “I think that will happen here, and I think it will happen for Harris.”
Carville also shared his views on the race in a New York Times guest essay last week. He said he believes Harris will win in part due to the Republican Party’s “losing streak” under former President Donald Trump. Conversely, Harris has united her party and gained significant support, he said to the AJC.
“But we’ve got a unified party. We got more money. We got more organization. We got more surrogates,” he said. “The Democratic coalition, from Dick Cheney to (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), is united through Election Day.”
Carville made a name for himself as a top Democratic strategist nationally through his work on Bill Clinton’s winning presidential campaign in 1992, when he coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
While Carville spent most of his life in Louisiana, his roots lead back to Georgia. He was born on Fort Moore, then known as Fort Benning, in Columbus and also worked on former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller’s campaign in 1990.
A documentary film about his life and work called “Winning is Everything, Stupid!” will be featured at the Savannah Film Festival Thursday. The documentary follows Carville during the ongoing presidential campaign and when he notably argued President Joe Biden would not defeat Trump, over a year before Biden dropped out of the race.
“In the South, we say when something’s mildewed, that means you can’t bring it back,” Carville said on the Politically Georgia podcast. “By that time, it was pretty apparent to me that President Biden was mildewed.”
To hear the full conversation with James Carville, listen to the AJC’s Politically Georgia podcast.
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