US Election 2024

Democrats poll numbers flagging but James Carville says ‘we’re winning elections’

May 15, 2025

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Democrats poll numbers flagging but James Carville says ‘we’re winning elections’

Despite a flurry of polling so far this year indicating the Democratic Party’s favorability sinking to record lows, veteran Democrat strategist and pundit James Carville remains optimistic, as he points to recent ballot box victories by his party.

“You can’t discount people winning elections,” Carville told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

Carville spoke the day after a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research was the latest to spell trouble for the Democratic Party, six months after they suffered setbacks up and down the ballot at the hands of now-President Donald Trump and Republicans.

The Democratic Party has been in the political wilderness since last November’s elections when Republicans won back control of the White House and the Senate and defended their fragile House majority. Republicans also made gains among Black and Hispanic voters as well as younger voters, all traditional members of the Democratic Party’s base.

According to the survey, only about one-third of Democrats are very or somewhat optimistic about the future of the Democratic Party. That’s a steep decline from last July when around six in 10 Democrats said they were optimistic. The survey, conducted May 1-5, points to an increase in optimism among Republicans, with 55% more optimistic about the future of the GOP, up from 47% last summer.

Since Trump’s return to power earlier this year, an increasingly energized base of Democrats is urging party leaders to take a stronger stand in pushing back against the president’s sweeping and controversial agenda during the opening months of his second administration. Their anger is directed not only at Republicans but also at Democrats they feel aren’t vocal enough in their opposition to Trump.

See also Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tough Bronx persona is under fresh scrutiny with a resurfaced childhood nickname from her suburban upstate New York upbringing casting doubt on that publicly portrayed image. The progressive champion’s latest spat with President Donald Trump over the Iran strikes again called into question her true upbringing when she declared on X she was a “Bronx girl" to make her a point against the president. The 35-year-old congresswoman wrote in part on X: "I’m a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast. Respectfully," she said, referring to the president’s upbringing in Queens as she called for his impeachment over his decision to bypass Congress in authorizing U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx but moved to Yorktown – which is nearly an hour outside New York City -- when she was 5 years old and went on to attend Yorktown High School where she graduated in 2007. She was considered an accomplished student there and well thought of by teacher Michael Blueglass, according to a 2018 report by local media outlet Halston Media News. “There, known by students and staff as ‘Sandy,’ she was a member of the Science Research Program taught by Michael Blueglass," the report states. “She was amazing," Blueglass said, per the report. “Aside from her winning one of the top spots and going to the [Intel International Science and Engineering Fair], she was just one of the most amazing presenters in all of the years I've been at Yorktown. Her ability to take complex information and explain it to all different levels of people was fantastic." After high school, Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, where she majored in economics and international relations, per the report. Ocasio-Cortez’s “Sandy" nickname — which carries a more suburban and preppy tone — appears to undercut her politically crafted image as a tough, inner-city fighter, one she has portrayed since her famous 2018 congressional campaign where she eventually ousted former 10-terms Congressman Joe Crowley. New York GOP Assemblyman Matt Slater, who now represents Yorktown, added to the scrutiny of Ocasio-Cortez’s persona in the wake of her brash with Trump and released images of Ocasio-Cortez from his high school yearbook. He claimed he and the rising Democratic star attended Yorktown High School at the same time when she was a freshman and he was a senior. "I saw the attacks on the president and her [Ocasio-Cortez] claims that she's a big, tough Bronx girl," said Slater. "To sit there and say that she’s a Bronx girl is just patently ridiculous." "Everybody in our community knows this is just a bold-face lie," said Slater on "Fox & Friends First" last week. "She grew up in Yorktown, she was on my track team." "She's lying about her background, she's lying about her upbringing," Slater claimed. Slater’s post sent social media ablaze and prompted Ocasio-Cortez to respond after an image if her family’s home was posted online. “I’m proud of how I grew up and talk about it all the time," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X Friday responding to the post. “My mom cleaned houses and I helped. We cleaned tutors’ homes in exchange for SAT prep." “Growing up between the Bronx and Yorktown deeply shaped my views of inequality & it’s a big reason I believe the things I do today!"

And that’s fueled the plunge in the Democratic Party’s favorable ratings, which have hit historic lows in several recent surveys.

The Democrats’ ratings stood underwater in the most recent Fox News national poll at 41% favorable and 56% unfavorable in a survey conducted April 18-21. That’s an all-time low for the Democrats in Fox News polling. For the first time in a decade, the party’s standing was lower than that of the GOP, which stood at 44% favorable and 54% unfavorable.

The Democratic Party’s favorable ratings were well in negative territory in a Pew Research national survey – 38% favorable, 60% unfavorable – conducted in early April and at 36% favorable, 60% unfavorable in a Wall Street Journal poll in the field a couple of weeks earlier.

National polls conducted in February by Quinnipiac University and in March by CNN and by NBC News also indicated the favorable ratings for the Democratic Party sinking to all-time lows.

Confidence in the Democratic Party’s congressional leadership sunk to an all-time low, according to a Gallup poll conducted early last month.

The confidence rating for Democrats’ leadership in Congress stood at 25% in the survey, which was nine points below the previous low of 34% recorded in 2023.

And the semi-annual Harvard Youth Poll, which was released late last month, indicated that approval ratings for Democrats in Congress among Americans aged 18-29 nosedived.

“I don’t doubt any of that’s true,” Carville told Fox News. “But there’s one thing: We’re winning elections left and right as we’re talking about how the Democratic number or image is low.”

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John Ewing, Jr., a Democrat, this week ousted a longtime Republican mayor in Omaha, Nebraska, a blue dot in a reliably red state. Ewing will become Omaha’s first Black mayor.

Last month, the Democrat-aligned candidate comfortably defeated the Republican-aligned candidate in a Wisconsin state Supreme Court election. The high-profile and expensive campaign grabbed plenty of national attention and outside money.

Democrats have also performed very well so far this year in special elections, including flipping red state Senate seats in Iowa and Pennsylvania.

In addition to looking back, Carville also pointed ahead to November’s gubernatorial election in Virginia, where Democrats hope to win back the governor’s office in Richmond.

“Let’s see what’s going to happen in Virginia,” said Carville, who first grabbed national attention for his work as a lead strategist on former President Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign.

And Carville predicted that “we’re going to win that.”

Overall, despite the recent low favorability ratings for the Democratic Party, Carville remains confident in the party’s ability to win elections and make a comeback. The recent victories at the ballot box demonstrate that despite challenges, the Democratic Party still has the potential to succeed in future elections.