Chester James Carville Jr. (born October 25, 1944) is an American political consultant, author and occasional actor who has strategized for candidates for public office in the United States and in at least 23 nations abroad. A Democrat, he is a pundit in U.S. elections who appears frequently on cable news programs, podcasts, and public speeches.

Nicknamed the "Ragin' Cajun", Carville gained national attention for his work as a lead strategist in Bill Clinton's winning 1992 presidential campaign. Carville also had a principal role crafting strategy for three unsuccessful Democratic Party presidential contenders, including Massachusetts senator John Kerry in 2004, New York Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008, and Colorado senator Michael Bennet in 2020.

He is married to longtime Republican political consultant Mary Matalin.

Carville was born on October 25, 1944, at a U.S. Army hospital at Georgia's Fort Benning, where his father was stationed during World War II. While his mother, Lucille (née Normand), had stayed behind in Carville, Louisiana, where James was raised, she traveled to Fort Benning long enough to have her firstborn son born there. Later, Carville noted: "We were availing ourselves to free government health services." Lucille Carville, a former school teacher, spoke French at home, and sold the World Book Encyclopedia door to door. His father, Chester James Carville Sr., was a postmaster and owner of a general store.

Carville, Louisiana, a neighborhood in the city of St. Gabriel, in Iberville Parish, located 16 miles south of the capital city of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi River, was named after his paternal grandfather Louis Arthur Carville, who was once the postmaster. Louis Arthur's mother, Octavia Dehon, was of Belgian parentage and had married John Madison Carville, described in a biography as "Irish-born" and a "carpetbagger." Together, they established the general store operated by the family in Carville, in 1882. Carville has seven siblings (Bonnie, Mary Ann, Gail, Pat, Steve, Bill, and Angela.).

Among Carville's earliest political campaign work was ripping down the campaign signs of a candidate for public office during high school. Carville graduated from Ascension Catholic High School in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, in 1962.

He attended Louisiana State University (LSU) from 1962 to 1966, but did not graduate at that time. In a 1994 feature in Newsweek, Carville characterized himself as "something less than an attentive scholar. I had 56 hours' worth of Fs before LSU finally threw me out."

Carville served a two-year enlistment in the United States Marine Corps, from 1966 to 1968, where he was stationed stateside, at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. He attained the rank of corporal.