Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville on Thursday warned Republicans that they’re going to pay a heavy price at the ballot box this year and next because of President Donald Trump’s unpopularity.
“I’m very, very, very confident that this administration is gonna be widely rejected in the elections coming up,” he told SiriusXM host Dan Abrams. “And they’re gonna be particularly widely rejected in the elections in 2026.”
The prediction came as the two debated a prediction Carville made in February: that the administration would suffer a “massive collapse” in public opinion within 30 days.
Carville insisted he was right, saying Trump now has a 37-40% approval rating with “terrible” marks for the economy.
“I think it’s collapsing now,” he said. “It is collapsing right in front of you.”
Abrams had pointed to poll aggregations from The New York Times and RealClearPolitics showing Trump with an approval rating of 44-45.8% and a disapproval rating of 51.4-53%.
“That’s not a collapse,” Abrams said. “That’s basically a little bit above where he was.”
Carville argued that the special elections held this year bear him out more than those polls.
“I see something completely different,” he told Abrams.
Democrats this year have outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 numbers during many of the special elections held so far.
“I think we’re we’re running away with every election we’ve had,” he told Abrams, then pointed to two states with gubernatorial elections this year: “We’re going to run away with Virginia. We’re going to win New Jersey.”
In 16 special elections held in the first months of the year, Democrats outperformed their 2024 margins by an average of 11.5%, NBC News reported in April. In June, Democrats beat expectations in five of six special elections, according to data journalist G. Elliott Morris.
Morris noted this week on Bluesky that Democrats are 2.6% ahead of Republicans in generic ballot polls, which is “ahead of pace for the average out-party at this point in midterm election cycles since 2006.”
And CNN data analyst Harry Enten said Trump himself is almost historically unpopular.
“If we are comparing him to other presidents at this point in their presidencies, he is the second lowest on record compared only to himself, who does worse,” he said Tuesday. “If we’re comparing him to other second terms, he’s certainly in the bottom of the list” aside from Richard Nixon, who was in a “worse” position.
See more of Carville’s conversation with Abrams below:
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