Democrat strategist James Carville is saying he has "just a feeling" that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat President Donald Trump in November.
"I don't like to predict elections," Carville, a former adviser for President Bill Clinton, told CNN's Anderson Cooper Monday night, according to The Hill. "I would just say, this just doesn't feel like a race that Harris is [going to] lose. But that's just a feeling."
Carville pointed out that most of the presidential elections in recent years were close until the finish line, aside from the 2008 election, when Barack Obama marked a decisive win over John McCain.
He said this year's race will also remain close in the polls until the win breaks for one of the candidates.
The least likely thing that would happen would be for the seven core swing states to split by 4-3 for either Trump or Harris, he predicted.
"It's close in the polls, and I'm not convinced that it's going to be close on Election Day,” Carville told Cooper, who asked him why the race seems close.
"I could be wrong, but it's going to break in one direction or the other," he said. "I really believe that. Most of the time, these elections do that."
The race is expected to come down to the results in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
According to the national pools, Harris remains less than 1 point away from Trump in some of the swing states, while she is ahead by nationally by 50.3% to 46.75%.
Meanwhile, Carville, famous for the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" when it comes to politics, said he thinks that still holds true in this year's presidential race.
But that also gives Harris a "wide opening," he said.
"Trump is saying, 'You've got nothing to lose,' everything is terrible, and I don't think so," he said. "I think people do have something … your 401(k), to the extent you have one, is probably doing a little better."
But Trump, Carville said, has set up a "dichotomy" where he says, "You've got nothing, [so] you ought to try all of these tariffs and mass deportations, which everybody says would have a horrifically negative impact on economic growth…she's got a giant opening. I hope she takes it."
However, Carville's wife, Republican strategist Mary Matalin, also on the program, disagreed about Harris.
"She says nothing unless she can serve salad dressing on it," Matalin said. "She hasn't said a thing."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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