Carville: Harris had 'every advantage' in the race

Democratic strategist James Carville said Vice President Harris had “every advantage” in the presidential race but lacked a motivating reason behind her campaign.

Carville unpacked Harris’s defeat in an interview released Saturday on “The Bulwark Podcast” with Tim Miller.

“By the way, she had every advantage. We had a united party, from Dick Cheney to AOC, everybody was, whatever you want to do is fine,” Carville said, referring to the former Republican vice president and to progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), both of whom backed Harris’s campaign.

“We had more people on the ground. We had more volunteers, we had more money, all right? We had more surrogates, but we didn't have a reason,” Carville continued.

Carville said the campaign was strong but that “since the dawn of time,” no number of resources or technology could overcome lacking a reason to vote for a candidate.

“You cannot not have a reason and beat it with technology, or beat it with volunteers, or do that,” Carville continued. “The overall message here, Tim: A reason, and she didn't give us a reason.”

Carville also pointed to President Biden’s insistence on staying in the race as a mistake that deprived talented young politicians the chance to move up and generate real excitement. Having a primary process, Carville said, would have served the party well.

“If we would have had this process, we'd have had gone through it, and we would have had this mega level of talent that exists, and all of these people would have been different. It would have been energetic. It would have created a sense of real excitement,” Carville said.

“Biden, he just blocked all that from happening,” he added.

With Harris, Carville said, Democrats “flubbed it” on delivering change to a country where approximately two-thirds of its citizens say they think they’re on the wrong track. The Harris campaign, according to Carville, failed to offer a compelling economic message that differed from the status quo.

“If the country wants something different, you try to give the country something different,” he said.

Instead, Carville said, Democrats responded by reasoning that, “We are just not going to give in to them. But maybe the odiousness of [President-elect] Trump combined with the Dobbs decision, we can overcome it.”

“Well, we didn't overcome it,” he added.

Carville pointed to Harris’s “devastating” lack of response on “The View,” when asked what she would do differently from Biden, as a key moment contributing to her defeat.

“It's the one question that you exist to answer, all right? That is it. That's the money question. That's the one you want. That's the one that everybody wants to know to answer to,” Carville said, reflecting on Harris’s past interview. “And you freeze, you literally freeze, and you say, ‘Well, I can't think anything.’”

“But when we go back, and history unearths this, it's going to be right there on ‘The View.’ And I think her name was Sunny Hostin … asked the question, and that's the most devastating answer you could imagine.”