Beyond losing the White House and control of the Senate in the 2024 election cycle, the Democrats failed to flip control of the House of Representatives, and President-elect Donald Trump also won all seven swing states and the popular vote over Vice President Kamala Harris. Going into 2025, Carville suggested several strategies the party can use to right its ship, including being popular across all sides of the Democratic Party while also standing for policies the Republican Party “can’t be for.” 

“So they can’t be for raising the minimum wage, because people won’t let them, the financiers won’t let them, the billionaires won’t let them,” Carville said on MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki. “They can’t be for having protections for women in Roe v. Wade, because that’s part of who they are. Then they can’t be for doing away with tax cuts for people who make over $400,000 a year and take that money and use it to help young people buy or rent a home. This is 75% popularity stuff. All we have to do is be there and hammer it home. And like I say, it’s three things: massively popular all across the party, massively popular all across the country, and the Republicans can’t be for it. Ram it home, ram it home!”

Another factor that the Democratic Party needs to improve on, Carville contended, is communication with voters, specifically warning against speaking in “jargonistic language.” He referenced his iconic words in the 1992 election, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and how these were directed to “the geniuses” in Bill Clinton’s campaign to be “authentic and to the point” over being “too smart” to voters.

At the start of 2025, Carville wrote an op-ed reflecting on why he was wrong in his prediction for the presidential election, and also advised Democrats eyeing the White House in 2028 that their auditions should be based on “how authentic you are on the economy” as well as how effectively they communicate this in podcast interviews. Prior to the 2024 election, Trump made numerous appearances on podcasts to discuss his policies, marking the first U.S. presidential election in which podcasts played a pivotal role.

With Trump set to return to the White House in about two weeks, the Washington Examiner’s Byron York assessed that the Democratic Party currently has “no one” of Trump’s stature to lead the opposition to the president-elect and his presidential agenda. He also encouraged for a proper debate on what went wrong with the party following the 2024 election cycle.

The Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe Doescher has also given her take on what the party’s next steps should be, which include addressing its “unpopular policies” as well as its “geriatric” reputation among the public. Regarding policy, Doescher contended that voters sided with Trump and his repeated promise to deport illegal immigrants from the country.