Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville said Tuesday that he’ll throw his support behind U.S. Representative Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez of New York if she wins the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
The Context
Carville’s comments are a stark departure from his longtime criticisms of Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most progressive members of the House of Representatives.
Ocasio-Cortez has often clashed with Carville and other members of the Democratic establishment for what she’s described as being out of touch with the party’s base.
What To Know
Carville was asked during an appearance on MSNBC‘s The Beat with Ari Melber about a recent poll in which 26 percent of likely voters said they see Ocasio-Cortez as the face of the Democratic Party.
The longtime strategist and political consultant—who was a key architect of two-term President Bill Clinton‘s 1992 campaign—began his response by calling the poll “utterly useless.”
“So all Republicans, all you see is AOC on Fox,” he told Melber, referring to the New York lawmaker by her nickname. “So that’s the general public’s view. That’s not the Democratic view. It means nothing.”
Carville then said he doesn’t have a “very favorable opinion of the Democratic Party” and that there “is no leader of the party” at the moment because it “doesn’t have a message.”
He went on to say Democrats will choose their leader during the 2028 election season, adding: “Look, we lost an election. 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 is the nominee, then God bless you.”
“You are the leader of the Democratic Party,” Carville said, while tipping his hat to the camera. “Whoever gets that nomination is going to be it.”
Melber pointed out the significance of Carville’s comments, saying, “Well, here we’ve backed into some intraparty news. You heard it here first. James Carville, once a critic of the AOC podcast landscape, now says, ‘If you win, you win,’ and you’ve got his support.”
“If you win, you win,” Carville said while laughing. “Look, that’s my answer. If you win the election, you’ve got it.”
The veteran strategist’s comments Tuesday come weeks after he disparaged Ocasio-Cortez, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives who have criticized the Democratic establishment.
Both Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders are crisscrossing the country on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour and drawing massive crowds as they call attention to President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and other billionaires’ vast influence in politics.
“Bernie has run for president twice, he’s lost twice. AOC and her kind … they want to run against other Democrats,” Carville said during an appearance on Chris Cuomo‘s NewsNation show last month. “They don’t want to run against Republicans. When you beat a Republican, come back and see me and I’ll be impressed.”
Carville went on to suggest during his interview with Cuomo that Democratic voters were trying to send a message to Sanders by not selecting him as the party’s nominee and that Ocasio-Cortez would see similar results if she runs for the top of the ticket.
“Maybe they need to split off from the Democratic Party,” he told Cuomo.
What People Are Saying
Carville told The New York Times last year that the Democratic Party is run by too many “preachy females”: “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females … ‘Don’t drink beer. Don’t watch football. Don’t eat hamburgers. This is not good for you.’ The message is too feminine: ‘Everything you’re doing is destroying the planet. You’ve got to eat your peas.’”
Ocasio-Cortez mocked Carville’s comments in the Times piece, writing on X, formerly Twitter: “Maybe he should start a podcast about it. I hear men are really underrepresented in that space.”
What Happens Next
Ocasio-Cortez has refrained from announcing whether she plans to run for the 2028 presidential nomination, saying that her “central focus” is countering Trump’s agenda on issues like health care, Social Security and immigration.
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