Former Bill Clinton strategist James Carville has identified the exact midterm scenario that would push President Donald Trump over the edge.
The Ragin’ Cajun was speaking on Politcon’s Politics War Room with James Carville & Al Hunt just days before Tuesday’s midterm election.
“What’s on my mind is what is the number that just disgraces Trump? I mean, is it 238 House seats? Is it 54 Senate seats?” he said.
“If it ends up 225 House seats and 50-50 Senate broke by a tie by JD Vance, [then] he’s able to play another day.
“If it goes too big—I got hit by this in ’94. If they get hit like that, he can’t respond to it. He’s just physically not able to deal with what’s coming his way. We won’t know till [the] election now. There is a number that almost makes him, other than designated articulated powers, he has no other power.”
Carville was working for Clinton in 1994. It was the middle of the Democratic president’s first term, and that year’s elections ended in disaster. The GOP captured unified control of both chambers for the first time since 1952, and those midterms later became known as the “Republican Revolution.”
Trump could be facing a similar situation. What has been widely touted as a potential blue wave could see Democrats wash away one or two strands of the GOP’s current government trifecta.
The narrative is fueled by the expectation that Tuesday’s vote will be a referendum on an historically unpopular president, Trump. He has started a new war in the Middle East with no end in sight, skyrocketing gas prices in the process.
During the podcast, Carville reflected that America needed to get Trump out of its system, and that the midterms could mark the first step for many former supporters to move on.
“The consequences of this cleansing that some people think we had to go through that was beneficial are $2 trillion in debt, an unwinnable war that we stuck in, an acceleration of what I think is the biggest social problem facing the United States—maybe in history—is the massive inequality that’s in this country [which has been] nothing but exacerbated by his tax package,” he said.
“So, but yes, I think that Tuesday the body politic will have extricated Trump from the bloodstream, but the residual damage he leaves is pretty heavy.”
Trump has been on a frantic tour of deep-red states in the final weeks before the election to drum up support.
The prognosis for the GOP is so bleak that it has spent vast resources trying to shore up votes it might otherwise rely on.
Trump’s role has centered on ensuring turnout, which some in the GOP fear will be low because he isn’t on the ballot himself.
Back in 1994, Clinton too found himself on a tour of key states. It didn’t pay off.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
