Democrats had one job to do in this cycle: Don't be crazy.
In any midterm, the election usually rests on satisfaction with the president and his party, especially when that party controls both chambers of Congress. The political environment in these midterms should produce a blue wave. Donald Trump remains unpopular with the general electorate, gas prices have risen significantly this year, and diesel prices are up even more spectacularly, feeding inflation that is biting into voters' buying power. The war with Iran has dragged on longer than Trump promised. Internecine feuds and purity campaigns in the GOP have sapped voter enthusiasm.
In that kind of environment, all Democrats had to do was not become the issue. The party needed to push reasonable and appealing candidates whose track records and positions contrasted with the perceived chaos of the status quo. A few figured this out; North Carolina Democrats recruited the popular governor Roy Cooper to run for the open Senate seat that Republican Thom Tillis will vacate through retirement, running on his relatively moderate track record as a contrast to the overall political environment.
Rather than stick to the middle, however, Democrats have lurched to the left so far that they have become radical socialists, and in a few cases, outright proud Marxists. They have welcomed the Democratic Socialists of America into their "big tent," including Senate candidates like Angie Nixon in Florida, who explicitly identifies as a DSA member, and their agenda includes eliminating the Senate for which she is running. They have also embraced Islamists with ties to terror organizations like Abdul El-Sayed and Adam Hamawy, who also are running on Marxist-friendly agendas.
Has that caught the attention of the American electorate? According to a new poll from Center Square, voters have significant concerns about the Democrats' sudden lurch toward revolutionary Marxism:
The Center Square Voters’ Voice poll found that 55% of American voters are concerned about Democratic Socialist candidates running for and winning elected office in the U.S., while 37% aren’t concerned.
A slew of candidates running as democratic socialists appears to be raising alarms with a majority of American voters.
Of the 55% who are concerned, 35% are very concerned, while 20% say they are “somewhat concerned.”
Of those not concerned, only 17% say they are not too concerned, while 20% say they are not at all concerned. ...
The latest poll comes on the heels of an August poll by The Center Square’s Voters’ Voice Poll, which found 63% of Americans are concerned with the growth of socialism or communism in American politics, while 29% were not concerned.
It's not just Republicans who are concerned about the massive shift to Marxism by their opponents. In this poll, 49% of Democrats express concern over the party's increased embrace of socialists. Only 40% express no concern over it at all. That number may be increasing, too; a CBS poll from this summer indicated that 60% of Democrats had a "positive view" of socialism.
That poll caught Sen. John Fetterman's attention at the time. He warned that his party was becoming "the party of socialism," and that it was increasingly embracing "lunacy":
The Democratic Party is becoming the party of socialism. 58% view socialism positively. 50% view capitalism negatively. I’m a proud free market capitalist. This is lunacy. https://t.co/i88gX2VWXF
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) August 16, 2026
That's notable in itself, but also for the arc Fetterman has traveled on the issue. In November of last year, Fetterman insisted that Zohran Mamdani's win in New York City was a one-off fluke and that Democrats would not embrace socialism:
🚨 Q: Will you SWITCH to Republican if socialism takes over the Democrat Party? SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN: No. Socialism isn't taking over the Democratic Party. NYC's politics are NOT a national model. Hate to break it to you, John. Socialism is taking over your party. https://t.co/KbIjBOMUzm
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 4, 2025
As I wrote at the time, Fetterman wasn't lying, but was misjudging the sharp turn his party had already taken. Even at that time, Fetterman should have realized this by the way he himself had been marginalized:
His party won't talk to him. His party leadership won't talk to him. MSNBC won't talk to him, despite being desperate for intelligent content.
Fetterman's loyalty and optimism are laudable, but only insofar as they don't cross over into sheer delusion. Fetterman believes in a Democrat Party that has been dead for about two decades everywhere it matters, including and especially at the national level. The swooning over socialists like Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and now Zohran Mamdani is not merely a Big Apple phenomenon, but a national shift to hard-Left radicalism by a party hollowed out by socialists in FDR's clothing. If Fetterman wants to rescue his party from the Red Brigades, he'd better snap out of it soon and start working to pull it back from the brink ... or rethink his loyalty to a party that only exists in name.
Nearly a year later, Fetterman has fully realized the danger that socialism, Marxism, and sympathies for radical Islam pose to his party and the nation. Should we be surprised that voters have also begun to see the danger as well?
They have an opportunity to deliver a verdict on it in three weeks. Republicans have to make this the central issue of the 2026 midterm elections, not just because it's smart politics – it certainly is that – but also to stop this lurch to the failed ideology that fueled mass murders and terrible oppression by socialist states over the last century-plus. The only way to reform the Democrat Party at this point is to punish them at the polls in every midterm race possible for playing footsie with radical revolutionaries, and worse, nominating them for national offices.
If Republicans will focus on the clear danger that the radical left poses, they have an opportunity to push the radicals back to the fringe for another generation. Only a massive loss will force Democrats to purge the DSA from its ranks. And this poll shows that message may well resonate with voters who see exactly what Fetterman now does – that the Democrat Party has chosen lunacy rather than offer a rational alternative.
