Democratic strategist James Carville is looking to the future and, in a surprising remark about the 2028 presidential election, suggested Tuesday that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would have his support if she entered the race and nabbed the nomination.
Carville was reacting on MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber” to a recent poll that saw voters name Ocasio-Cortez as the face of the Democratic Party, even ahead of her more established peers Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Look, we lost the election,” Carville told Melber. “I don’t like the party. I don’t blame the party reputation for being low, but I think that if AOC wants to run for president and she gets the nominee, then God bless you, you are the leader of the Democratic Party.”
“And whoever gets that nomination is gonna be it, and that’s all,” he continued.
The comment appeared to take Melber by surprise, as Carville recently argued Democrats would be “better off” without progressives like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez defining the party — and stated quite directly in April that he isn’t “impressed” by either of them.
“Well, here we backed into some intra-party news,” Melber half-jokingly responded Tuesday. “You heard it here first: James Carville, once a critic of the AOC podcast landscape, now says, if you win, you win — and you got his support.”
“If you win, you win!” Carville agreed. “That’s my attitude, you win the election, you got it!”
David Zalubowski/Associated Press
The strategist initially dismissed the Co/Efficient survey Tuesday as “useless” for polling Democrats and Republicans alike, however, and argued that Ocasio-Cortez only topped it because GOP voters who watch Fox News frequently see her discussed on the air.
Carville, who notably failed to accurately predict last year’s presidential election, went on to claim that those who named Ocasio-Cortez simply picked “the person they’ve been programmed” to and argued that the Democratic Party will find their nominee in “due time.”
“We’re not going to have one until 2028, but boy have we got some talent out there,” Carville told Melber. “And I don’t have a very favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, and I have no idea who the leader of the party is, and I’m not even disturbed.”
“I don’t think the party is in near as bad shape as it’s being portrayed to be,” he added.
