The Democrat Party just got a nasty surprise it did not see coming.
Socialist candidates swept three House primaries in New York City, and the old guard is in full meltdown mode.
And James Carville went absolutely ballistic — saying out loud what most party insiders are too scared to whisper.
Three Primaries, Three Socialists, One Very Angry Cajun
The results hit like a bucket of cold water. Three candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won Democrat primaries for the House of Representatives.
Former New York City comptroller Brad Lander crushed Representative Dan Goldman to earn the nomination in the 10th district. Goldman, a two-term incumbent, never saw it coming.
Union organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated Representative Adriano Espaillat in the 13th district, and state Representative Claire Valdez trounced Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in the 7th district.
All three districts are solidly blue, and so the Mamdani-backed candidates are expected to win their general elections. Meaning these are not protest candidates. They are the future of the Democrat Party in New York — whether the James Carvilles of the world like it or not.
Carville did not like it.
Carville Goes to War With His Own Party
Veteran Democrat strategist James Carville said it may be time for Democrats to split with the party’s Marxist wing after the string of primary victories in New York City.
He went on the Politicon podcast and unloaded. He noted that Avila Chevalier, who was born to Dominican immigrants, once said white people should not be in interracial marriages.
And then Carville said the quiet part loud.
“Lady, I ain’t in the same party as you,” Carville said. “I’m sorry. I’m just not. And I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk the ‘s’ word: schism. I really do. Everybody’s always said, ‘No, no. We’re a coalition. We’re a big tent.’ And there’s just some sh*t I can’t be in the same tent with.”
He kept going. Carville insisted that despite winning their Democrat primaries, “these people are not Democrats,” and suggested that establishment Democrats “negotiate the terms of a schism” with democratic socialists in the party.
“Start your own movement,” Carville said. “If it’s such a powerful, sweeping movement that’s got momentum everywhere, then go ahead and be at the head of it. Don’t use the Democratic Party to advance it.”
Chevalier Is the Name Everyone Keeps Coming Back To
Of the three winners, Avila Chevalier drew the sharpest criticism by far. She has made comments calling Barack Obama evil, calling Joe Biden a rapist, and calling for defunding the police and ending prisons.
“I don’t think that the congressional Democrats should seat her as a member of the Democratic Party — she actually describes herself as a democratic socialist,” Carville said. “I don’t have anything in common with someone that says that they’re against interracial dating or doesn’t want to have any incarceration for convicted felons.”
But here is the problem for Carville and the old guard. “You can’t kick her out of Congress, she was voted [in],” Carville acknowledged. The voters of that district made their choice. And since all three districts are safe Democrat seats, these candidates will almost certainly be sworn into Congress.
Carville said Democrats should not seat Avila Chevalier in the party caucus, calling her socialist views “a bridge too far.”
The Party’s Leadership Stayed Quiet
Carville was not shy about naming names when it came to who should be speaking up and isn’t. His co-host on Politicon made the stakes plain.
“Unless other Democrats stand up, certainly people like Obama, but also some of the younger Democrats who said, this is not us,” co-host Al Hunt warned, adding that it is “absolutely crucial” that Democrats not just pick up eight or ten House seats, “because that group of crazies will absolutely just sabotage Hakeem Jeffries every step of the way.”
Hunt said he does not think the new socialist bloc has the potential to be reined in the way AOC eventually was. Carville agreed: “I don’t either.”
And yet the people with the actual power to do something about it went quiet. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, when asked by CNBC if he was the “next target” of democratic socialism, reportedly deflected. Carville also pointed to several congressional Democrats — including Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) — who have spoken out to say they are not aligned with Chevalier’s views or those of other Democrat socialist candidates. Fetterman, of course, is a reliable Democrat vote who supports abortion-on-demand, gun control, amnesty for illegal aliens, and transgender surgeries for minors — but even he apparently drew the line at open socialism. Make of that what you will.
What Is Actually Happening Here
Carville has spent decades as one of the Democrat Party’s most effective architects. He ran Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign and has been a fixture in party strategy ever since. When a man like that goes on a podcast and says he is done with his own party, something real is happening.
But let’s be honest about what this really is. The socialist left did not sneak into the Democrat Party overnight. It has been marching through the institutions for years — through the universities, through the activist networks, through the progressive donor class. Carville and the establishment let it happen because they needed the energy and the votes. Now the bill is coming due, and they do not like the price.
The historical record on socialism is not ambiguous. Every country that has gone down that road — from Venezuela to Cuba to the Soviet Union — ended up with the same results: economic ruin, shrinking freedoms, and a government that decides who gets what and who gets nothing. The candidates winning Democrat primaries in New York are not proposing something new. They are proposing something very old, and very well-documented in its failure.
Veteran Democrat strategist Carville harshly criticized socialists attempting to take control of the party and publicly distanced himself from candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, who is backed by Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America, stating that socialists should stop using the Democrat Party as a vehicle for their agenda.
And Carville said something else worth sitting with. “I am totally comfortable in a political party that spends time questioning the policies of the government of Israel. In fact, I’m enthusiastic about that. I don’t want to be in a political party that denies the right of the state of Israel to exist.”
The question now is whether anyone in the Democrat establishment actually does anything about it, or whether Carville’s outrage becomes just another cable news moment that changes nothing. The socialist candidates won their primaries fair and square. They will almost certainly win their general elections. And when they get to Washington, DC, they will vote accordingly — for abolishing prisons, defunding police, and whatever else their movement demands next.
Carville can call for a schism all he wants. But the voters of those New York districts already made their choice. And the rest of the country is watching to see if the Democrat Party follows.
Sources: Mediaite, Fox News, RealClearPolitics, Western Journal, Politicon podcast