WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and Republican leaders are ramping up a political attack against Democrats as midterm elections approach, labeling members of the party’s growing left wing as communists.
Over the past week alone, Trump has warned that rising figures within the Democratic Party are communists intent on trying to “completely destroy the traditional American way of life” and even carry out assassinations. Vice President JD Vance described communism as a political drift that is “something we haven’t seen in the U.S.” Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson condemned what he called “radical candidates” who are “self-described, self-identifying Marxists.”
The Republican strategy blurs the line between democratic socialism — a political philosophy generally focused on universal healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy, and tighter regulations on corporations — and communism, which calls for the elimination of private ownership. This line of attack has been gaining steam since Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, captured the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor last year.
The effort shifted into a higher gear after democratic socialists claimed several New York City congressional primary wins last week. A Tuesday primary victory by democratic socialist Melat Kiros for a Denver congressional seat signaled the trend may be spreading beyond New York City politics.
“The Democrats are making this easy for us,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, the North Carolina Republican who heads the House GOP’s strategy and fundraising operation. “They’re nominating extreme liberals, leftists who are out of touch even with mainstream Democrats.”
Republicans are pushing this message as they fight to maintain slim congressional majorities in November. The strategy, however, carries some risk — it could ignore growing public dissatisfaction, especially among younger voters, with unchecked capitalism at a time when income inequality is widening and everyday costs keep climbing.
At the same time, the approach gives Republicans a chance to steer the political conversation back to ground they find more favorable. The party has spent much of the year on the defensive following the fallout from Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran, which contributed to widespread price increases.
Ralph Reed, a veteran conservative activist who welcomed Trump at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference last week, admitted Republicans are facing strong headwinds this election cycle. Even so, he said the recent string of democratic socialist primary wins gives Republicans the ability to draw a contrast between “common sense and crazy.”
The renewed messaging could also expose fault lines within the Democratic Party. While Democrats are broadly united in their opposition to Trump, they are split over the party’s future direction. This year’s primaries are shaping up as a battle between centrists who want to pull back from what they see as progressive overreach earlier this decade and a left flank pushing for even bolder change.
“A lot of this anger has been boiling under the surface,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, the organization founded by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who aligns with Democrats. “It’s coming to the fore in this moment in a very powerful way.”
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a centrist Democrat from New Jersey, pushed back, characterizing the socialist victories in Colorado and New York as “aberrations.”
Trump returned to the theme on Wednesday during a visit to the newly constructed Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota, where he praised the former president as a “ferocious opponent of a thing called communism.”
“It’s the biggest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, September 11,” Trump said. “It’s a bigger threat, potentially a bigger threat than that, because it’s like a cancer that spreads, and you better stop it fast.”
