Democratic veteran James Carville says he would rather see the Republicans retain a majority in the House of Representatives by five seats than for the Democrats to win by an equally narrow margin.
He fears that a narrow Democratic victory would make the party ‘hostages’ to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Carville made the comments in an interview with The Bulwark Takes, in which he discussed the mid-term elections in November. He said he would be disappointed if the Democrats ended up with around 225 seats in the House of Representatives.
“I’d rather the Republicans retain their majority by five seats than the Democrats win by five, because then they’ll be held hostage by the DSA,” said Carville.
He believes such a narrow majority would give the party’s left wing considerable influence. The Democrats will have very little room for manoeuvre, and party leader Hakeem Jeffries will struggle to push through his policies if radical left-wing representatives refuse to support his proposals.
Carville also highlighted the Senate. He said that even if the Democrats were to secure a narrow majority there, Senator John Fetterman would keep party leader Chuck Schumer “on Pepto-Bismol all night”.
– Winning by a landslide is almost as important as winning. It sounds strange, but 225 seats would be a nightmare, said Carville.
It’s the economy, stupid
Carville is one of the US’s best-known Democratic election strategists. He became particularly well-known when he helped get Bill Clinton elected as president in 1992.
Carville coined the phrase ‘it’s the economy, stupid’. In 1992, he wrote ‘the economy, stupid’ on a whiteboard at the campaign headquarters in Little Rock. The slogan was an internal reminder to the campaign team to keep their focus on the economy.
He also believes that progressive Democrats are attempting to use the Michigan primary to demonstrate that left-wing policies can win support across the country, not just in traditionally progressive metropolitan areas.
The moderate Democrat Kaivan Shroff disagreed with Carville’s assessment. He felt the statement could deter left-wing voters from casting their ballots. Carville maintained, however, that a narrow Democratic victory could give the party’s left wing disproportionate power.
Calling on Ilhan Omar to leave the party
Carville has on several occasions harshly against the party’s left wing in the run-up to the mid-term elections. He has called left-wing Democrats ‘fucking stupid’ and warned against what he describes as false prophets within the socialist movement.
He has directed particular criticism at Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, who has said that the progressive movement does not need the party establishment to bring about change.
In August, Carville told Fox News Digital that he might become a Republican on one condition: that the Democrats lost their minds and the Republicans came to their senses. He added, however, that he saw no signs that the latter might happen.
In March Carville reiterated Carville his criticism of Ilhan Omar and called on her to leave the Democratic Party. The background to this was a 2018 Al Jazeera interview, in which Omar said that the US should be more afraid of white men because they “cause most of the deaths in this country”.
Carville reacted to the statement, arguing that the Democrats cannot win elections by alienating white male voters.
