Republicans are increasingly leaning on anti-communist messaging as a cudgel against Democrats heading into the November elections.
With only 100 days until the midterm elections, Republicans have launched repeated attacks tying the rise in socialism in the Democratic Party to communism. Democrats have seen a surge in socialist candidates in the 2026 cycle, with the socialist wing of the Democratic Party set to more than double its numbers after November.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) held a roundtable last week on the “threat of communism,” and said during her opening remarks that “What my biggest concern is today is what we’re witnessing here in America, and what we’re witnessing is the rise of communism.
“Socialism is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and we have to call it out,” McClain said. “And part of what we need to do is we need to educate people where communism comes from, but where it leads to.”
The DSA describes itself as a democratic socialist organization, though it also contains organized ideological caucuses representing a range of left-wing traditions, including Marxist, Leninist, communist, and other socialist tendencies. Those caucuses advocate differing strategies and philosophies, but all operate within the broader organization.
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Currently, there are only two House lawmakers who are members of the DSA: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). But the victories of three DSA-backed candidates in deep blue New York and Colorado districts are set to rapidly expand the group’s ranks next Congress.
In total, seven candidates endorsed by the DSA are advancing to the general election, with 11 other candidates still facing off in competitive primaries. The DSA has endorsed 29 House candidates in total this cycle, with 11 having lost their primaries.
But Republicans, who are looking to hold onto their GOP trifecta in Washington, are hoping to turn the socialist candidates’ primary wins into a silver bullet for themselves.
During the roundtable, McClain argued that communism “used to be a fringe issue,” but Democrats are now “electing ‘Democratic socialists’ — I don’t know what they call them — they put a pretty little name on it, but they’re electing communism.”
On July 14, House GOP leadership hosted Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), whose family fled from Cuba, as a guest speaker in their weekly press conference to warn against the rise of communism.
“I’ll fight the communists to the death because I know what it brings,” Gimenez told reporters. “I know the future it will bring to my children and my grandchildren. It’s a pack of lies. And people that believe in this ideology are one of two things: they’re either idiots or they’re evil because they want to take your freedom away.”
Gimenez continued, “They have destroyed my home country, utterly destroyed. They haven’t destroyed the spirit of the Cuban people. I look forward to the day we can say that will no longer be true.”
President Donald Trump has also messaged heavily against communism in recent weeks, saying that, “With communism, everything turns to s***, OK? It’s true.”
When asked about criticism that the DSA is a communist organization, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters, “These folks call everyone they don’t like a communist.”
“I think that America is a free country,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “You know, they’re out here palling around with whoever they want to pal around with. So what? Like, people can do what they want. I don’t. I’m not here to be the belief police around here.”
The homing in on anti-communism messages from Republicans appears to be part of a wider campaign strategy. A memo prepared for the House Republican Conference advises members to tie socialism and Marxism to communism because voters consider the latter “far more dangerous and alarming.”
“Americans still hold communism as far more dangerous and alarming than socialism and Marxism,” the memo obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner reads. “That is an important indicator for Members: do your best to connect all three together, because these government systems are fruit of the same poisonous tree.”
The polling memo, conducted by conservative political research firm co/efficient, shows 42% of respondents consider communism as the “most dangerous system of government for the United States to pursue.”
Socialism ranks second, at 15%, and Marxism is at 6%. Twenty-four percent of respondents answered “none of the above.”
The political research firm polled 2,634 registered voters from July 13 to 16 through text and landline interviews. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.88%.
“We have been saying that this was an election that was shaping up as a contest between common sense and crazy, and now it is literally in many sectors around the country, common sense versus communism,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters last week. “We have done our job. We’ll continue to do it.”
MEMO URGES REPUBLICANS TO TIE DEMOCRATS TO COMMUNISM
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene (D-WA) said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that the “midterms will ultimately be a referendum on who is going to lower costs and help improve the lives of everyday Americans — which House Republicans have failed spectacularly to do.
“In the purple, majority-making districts — Democratic candidates are running substantive campaigns focused on lowering costs, saving health care, and fighting to make life affordable for working families,” she wrote. “Republicans already know they’ve lost the American people, and that’s why they are resorting to desperate attacks that aren’t actually about the pocketbook issues, but just baseless spin that falls flat with voters who are eager to reject Republicans.”