Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville said Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in November with messaging on the top issue for voters: The economy.
“We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is and it always will be the economy, stupid,” Carville wrote in an op-ed posted in The New York Times. “We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else.”
If Democrats want to win elections, they’ll have to win over voters on the economy, Carville said.
“Mr. Trump, for the first time in his political career, decisively won by seizing a swath of middle-class and low-income voters focused on the economy,” he wrote. “Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative. The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back.”
He predicted dire consequences for Democrats if they fail to turn things around.
“Mr. Trump won the popular vote by putting the economic anger of Americans front and center,” he wrote. “If we focus on anything else, we risk falling farther into the abyss.”
Trump vowed on the campaign trail to put more money in Americans’ pockets. The president-elect’s plans could add to the growing national debt. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit group, estimated that Trump’s plan would increase the debt by $7.5 trillion.
On the spending side, Trump proposed extending and modifying the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act; exempt overtime wages from taxes; exempt tips from taxes; end taxation of Social Security benefits; lower the corporate tax rate to 15% for domestic manufacturers; strengthen and modernize the military; secure the border and deport unauthorized immigrants; enact housing reforms, including credits for first-time homebuyers. On the revenue side, Trump would establish a baseline tariff and add other tariffs; reverse energy and environmental policies and expand production; reduce waste, fraud and abuse; and get rid of the U.S. Department of Education and support school choice.
Committee for A Responsible Federal Budget said many uncertainties exist in the estimates.
