James Carville: Why I’m Certain Kamala Harris Will Win

Oct. 23, 2024, 5:08 a.m. ET

A black-and-white photo of a crowd of Kamala Harris supporters waving and cheering.

Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times

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By James Carville

Mr. Carville is a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s in 1992, and a consultant to American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC.

There is a palpable anxiety wailing on the winds of American life right now. More than in any other election in my lifetime, I’ve been consistently asked by people of all stripes and creeds: “Can Kamala Harris win this thing? Are we going to be OK?” This sentiment is heard over and over from sweaty Democratic operatives who all too often love to run to the press with their woes.

While I am not one to take part in the political prediction industry — recently ballooned by mysterious crypto investments gambling on a Donald Trump victory — today I am pulling my stool up to the political poker table to throw my chips all in: America, it will all be OK. Ms. Harris will be elected the next president of the United States. Of this, I am certain. Here are three reasons:

Mr. Trump is a repeat electoral loser. This time will be no different.

The biggest reason Mr. Trump will lose is that the whole Republican Party has been on a losing streak since Mr. Trump took it over. See 2018: the largest House landslide for Democrats in a midterm election since Watergate. See 2020: He was decisively bucked from the White House by Joe Biden. See 2022: an embarrassment of a midterm for Republicans off the heels of Dobbs. And the Democrats have been performing well in special elections since Trump appointees on the Supreme Court helped take away a basic right of American women. Guess what? Abortion is on the ballot again — for president.

There simply do not seem to be enough voters — even in the battleground states — who turn out at Mr. Trump’s behest anymore when he’s simply preaching to his base. He has not learned from his electoral losses nor done the necessary work to assemble a broad electoral coalition in 2024. Let’s not forget that seven weeks after Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican primary, she received 158,000 votes in Pennsylvania — and some disaffected Haley voters are currently looking to move to Ms. Harris. Although Ms. Haley has endorsed Mr. Trump, losing even a fraction of those voters leaves Mr. Trump running the final leg of this race with a fundamental fracture of the femur. To add a cherry to the pie, most voters think Mr. Trump is too old to be president, but instead of easing their concerns, he’s spending the final days of the campaign jiving to the Village People and canceling interviews.

On the other side, in just three months Ms. Harris has assembled a unified and electrified coalition. From Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Liz and Dick Cheney, it is the broadest we have seen in modern political history. And Ms. Harris’s coalition is just as excited as the smaller opposition. This is shaping out to be a record-turnout election — and if the bigger coalition turns out with equal enthusiasm, it will be lights out for Mr. Trump.

Money matters, and Ms. Harris has it in droves.

More reality: Money matters in politics. If this weren’t the case, somebody would be wasting an awful lot of time raising it. Take it from Lindsey Graham, who is whining that Republicans are getting creamed in fund-raising. He’s not wrong to complain, since Ms. Harris is processing Cheddar like a Wisconsin cheese factory.

Since joining the race, the vice president has raised an eye-boggling $1 billion, and last quarter one of her fund-raising committees reeled in $633 million — dwarfing what Mr. Trump raised with two committees combined. All this cash not only effectively offsets the flow of money funneling in for Mr. Trump from some tech billionaires, but it has also given Ms. Harris the resources she needs to persuade swing voters with ads and to organize on the ground. With her field operation moving like a tremendous machine, it seems likely there has never been a greater disparity in voter contact efforts. Mr. Trump can run all the high-profile TV ads he wants painting Ms. Harris as extreme, but what’s less discussed is that she is more than fighting back with ads reminding voters of how Mr. Trump betrayed his oath of office after the 2020 election and ended a woman’s right to choose. She is strapped with the necessary cash to forcefully remind suburban women and voters in the middle that Mr. Trump is, in fact, the extremist candidate.

It’s just a feeling.

My final reason is 100 percent emotional. We are constantly told that America is too divided, too hopelessly stricken by tribalism, to grasp the stakes. That is plain wrong. If the Cheneys and A.O.C. get that the Constitution and our democracy are on the ballot, every true conservative and every true progressive should get it too. A vast majority of Americans are rational, reasonable people of good will. I refuse to believe that the same country that has time and again overcome its mistakes to bend its future toward justice will make the same mistake twice. America overcame Mr. Trump in 2020. I know that we know we are better than this.

Now, I don’t mean for my prediction of a Harris victory to breed complacency. We still have days of vital work to do. I say all this because a movement that marches with hope is 1,000 times as thunderous as a movement that marches with dread.

For the past decade, Mr. Trump has infected American life with a malignant political sickness, one that would have wiped out many other global democracies. On Jan. 6, 2021, our democracy itself nearly succumbed to it. But Mr. Trump has stated clearly that this will be the last time he runs for president. That is exactly why we should be exhilarated by what comes next: Mr. Trump is a loser; he is going to lose again. And it is highly likely that there will be no other who can carry the MAGA mantle in his wake — certainly not his running mate.

In two weeks, we not only have a chance to elect Kamala Harris as president, but a chance to bring finality to the sordid career of Donald Trump and drive MAGA into a prolonged remission.

See you on the other side.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230025)

1. He lost before

2. She's got a lot of money

3. She's just gonna win, OKAY???

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230033)

trump has not yet proven that his republican party can be a majority party... only that it can be better than the republican party of 2012.

he may be able to prove that in two weeks, esp if he solidifies the majority support of arabs, latinos, and 20% of blacks. If he can manage that, the Dems are long-termed fucked and white women cannot save them

white men, latinos, arabs, fifth of blacks, everyone rural, at least half of unions is a better coalition than white women, black women, grad school, and coastal urbans

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230052)

All of this poll analysis and 'feeling' and word on the street stuff is pure garbage. Results matter. Trump should have blown Biden out in 2020 by big margins and he should have picked up seats in 2022. Neither happened.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230102)

i dont see a problem with including midterms as data, so long as you recognize they are midterms and so less meaningful

to say "2022 tells us nothing" isnt particularly honest, unless you also say "with only two data points of 16 and 20, we honestly dont know shit and this is junk science"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230137)

the thesis you build upon data points could have meaning

the thesis's that are built upon the 2022 are particularly weak

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230141)

PROTIP: I fucking HATE the GOP as a party and as an organization and I hope they self-immolate ASAP so that something better can be reborn out of their shitty ashes.

2nd PROTIP: Even though Zion Don is a deeply flawed candidate and person in many important ways, I still like him quite a bit and I think his candidacy is a net positive for this country's future.

3rd PROTIP: There are a ton of people who feel the same way that I feel in this country.

See if you can figure out why that means 2022 =! 2024 when it comes to likely voter turnout, enthusiasm on the right, etc.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48232955)

He can't really believe this is true, right? Electrified coalition - Liz & Dick Cheney. I assume he's having fun and trolling

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230043)

deep down he knows that the dems are fucked bc they're driving away men in droves

carville tried to warn the dems earlier, but they didn't listen

so the only thing he can do rite nao is to be a cheerleader for the dems to help blunt their demoralization

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230068)

thanks, Jim!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48230114)

I get it if W endorsed Kamala, but the Cheneys are literally a fcking negative endorsement.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5616537&forum_id=2#48232937)