President Donald Trump has been sounding alarms in recent days, warning that communism could threaten the United States if Democrats win control in the upcoming midterm elections.
During a visit to the newly opened Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota on Wednesday, Trump pivoted from the event’s purpose to deliver a political warning. “It’s the biggest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, September 11th,” he declared.
The week before, speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s 2026 policy conference, Trump referred to Democrats as “hard core, godless Communists.”
These latest attacks have come on the heels of primary victories by democratic socialist candidates and echo similar rhetoric Trump has used throughout his time in politics. Vice President J.D. Vance and other Republican leaders have repeated similar talking points — but political experts say the characterizations simply don’t hold up.
Here’s what the facts actually show.
TRUMP’S CLAIM: “It’s becoming a communist party. These are not social Dumocrats, these are hardcore, godless Communists.”
WHAT EXPERTS SAY: According to political scholars, no candidate who openly belongs to the U.S. Communist Party has ever been elected to state or federal office. While there are segments within the Democratic Party that have expressed some sympathy for communist ideas, experts emphasize that even those members still support a market-based economy. Painting the entire party as communist, they say, is simply not accurate. Trump has recently taken to spelling “Democrats” as “Dumocrats” as a form of mockery.
Marc Selverstone, who directs presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs, put it plainly: “The reality is that none of these major political figures in the Democratic Party, even those further out on the left, are identifying as communists.” He added that the label serves as a way to portray Democrats as extreme and outside the mainstream.
Selverstone, who has written a book on international communism, noted that Democrats who lean toward socialism or democratic socialism are still nowhere near embracing core communist principles — such as eliminating private property or placing the entire economy under central government control.
Democratic socialists, by contrast, support expanding the social safety net while operating within a democratic system. Their priorities typically include universal healthcare, higher taxes on wealthy individuals, and tighter regulation of corporations.
Some democratic socialists are affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, which is a political and activist organization — not a political party.
Trump himself has spoken openly about the political usefulness of such labels. In August 2024, while speaking with reporters at his New Jersey golf club, he described his strategy for defeating his then-Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris — whom he called “comrade Kamala” — by saying: “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody who is going to destroy our country.”
When asked to respond to Trump’s communist accusations against Democratic candidates, Kendall Witmer, the Democratic National Committee’s rapid response director, said the president is “grasping at straws” as the midterms approach.
On the other side, Olivia Wales, a White House spokeswoman, defended Trump’s position, saying that “the Democrats’ embrace of socialism and communism is an existential threat to our country” and that Trump will “keep calling out their radicalism.”
The Communist Party USA itself has a limited presence in American politics. Co-chair Joe Sims said the organization has brought in roughly 20,000 members over the past several years and is still working to determine how many remain active. Even Sims acknowledged that recent Democratic candidates can’t accurately be described as members of his party. “I don’t know of any of those candidates who are members of the Communist Party or who subscribe to Marxism in the tradition that our party comes from,” he said. “Not that it would be a crime if there are such forces, but at this stage, I really don’t see it.”
Two Democratic candidates have drawn particular attention. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a declared democratic socialist who defeated a five-term New York City congressman in the Democratic primary, has faced questions about deleted social media posts that expressed sympathy toward communism. She said in a statement that she is “proud to be a democratic socialist,” and her campaign confirmed she does not identify as a communist.
Graham Platner, who won the Maine Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and will face longtime Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November, has also faced criticism over old online comments — including one in which he referred to himself as a communist. But in an interview with CNN last October, he said: “I’m not a communist. I’m not a socialist.”
Harvey Klehr, a professor emeritus at Emory University and a recognized expert on American communism, said it is unlikely that Democrats who flirt with communist-adjacent ideas actually consider themselves members of the Communist Party.
While a small number of communist candidates have won local offices across the country, experts agree that no openly Communist Party member has ever secured a state or federal seat.
Historians also note that accusing political opponents of being communists or Marxists without evidence has deep roots in American politics. The most notorious example is Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led efforts in the 1950s to blacklist people suspected of communist ties. McCarthy’s chief counsel during those televised hearings was Roy Cohn — who later became a mentor and close associate to Trump as he built his real estate career in New York.
Maurice Isserman, a professor of American history at Hamilton College and an expert in American communism, offered this perspective: “I think it’s part of the arsenal of the right, which today means the Republican Party, largely, to pull out these accusations of communism, of godless communism.”
