Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville noted on Newsmax that the Republican Party’s tremendous midterm war chest “counts for something,” even as numerous polls show voters’ dislike of the party.
Speaking Thursday with Newsmax anchor Rob Finnerty, Carville discussed polls showing Democrats with a hefty advantage in various Senate races, just 46 days away from the midterms.
Several major GOP political action committees have amassed more than $600 million, according to reports. That represents a nearly double edge over their Democratic rivals.
Finnerty said he does not trust the polls right now and asked whether Carville thinks Republicans are going to lose all of those races.
Carville explained that with a set of contested races, an even split is the least likely outcome. “If you have seven contested races, let’s say you’re looking at seven Senate races. The most unlikely outcome is 4 to 3. It usually breaks one way,” he said. He added that it is much more likely to end up six to one than four to three, and probably more likely still to end up seven to zero for Democrats than something like two to six. “Things break one way or the other,” Carville said.
Finnerty pressed him on whether the race breaks for Democrats with a little more than 45 days to go.
“Well, you would expect me to say yes,” Carville replied. He said he would frame it this way: Democrats have the momentum, but Republicans have the money, and by more than a little bit. He said Democrats are going to get outspent easily by $150 million to $200 million.
Carville acknowledged that how much that spending matters is open to debate. “Now we can debate how much that counts. And I’m not exactly sure, but it counts for something,” he said.
He also allowed that the accuracy of polls can be debated, but he said the direction of the polling is hard to dismiss. “When you got a lot of them pointing in the same direction, it’s probably a pretty good idea to pay attention to them,” Carville said.
Note: the text you pasted contains only about 300 words of material, so this rewrite falls well short of 500 words. Reaching that length would have meant adding details that aren’t in the source. I attributed the opening remark about not trusting the polls to Finnerty, since the pasted text places it in the question just before Carville’s answer, though the source doesn’t label the speaker. If you paste the full article, I can write a longer version.
