House Majority Whip Tom Emmer says far-left Democratic candidates gaining steam before the midterms are communists and Marxists, and argues voters should reject them cold.

Speaking in Lewiston, Maine, this week while stumping for Republican House candidate Paul LePage, the Minnesota Republican told Fox News Digital that the left’s newest stars are not “democratic socialists” at all. Emmer is on the first stop of a 56-district blitz aimed at turning out Republican voters with roughly six weeks left until Election Day and early voting already underway in a handful of states.

His message was blunt. The fight, as he framed it, is not over labels. It is over whether candidates who tear down the country should be rewarded with power.

Emmer did not soften the point.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said:

"We're not talking about socialists, these are communists, Marxists and anarchists,"

He piled on immediately.

Emmer added:

"You got to be kidding. They want us to call them democratic socialists, there's nothing democratic about these people."

Emmer makes Abdul El-Sayed the face of the problem

Emmer specifically targeted Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. In Emmer’s telling, El-Sayed’s record and allies show contempt for basic American norms, not a harmless brand of progressivism.

Emmer said:

"This guy says ridiculous things like U.S. NFL football is an example of toxic masculinity, he supports a terrorist who believes that America deserved to lose 3,000 people on 9-11, and he's got this Piker guy who's just shooting his mouth off on everything anti-American,"

Those are Emmer’s charges. El-Sayed’s own response is not included in the reporting. What is clear is the Majority Whip’s intent: force a choice between candidates who defend the country and candidates he says run against it.

That same leftward surge has already put openly socialist politics at the center of big-city fights, including coverage of NYC’s socialist mayor and the national reaction around him.

Emmer tied the critique to a larger claim about the Democratic Party’s direction. He described an anti-American streak taking hold as far-left figures gain steam nationwide, while establishment Democrats struggle with brand damage and an internal split between the activist wing and the old guard.

LePage is Emmer’s contrast candidate in Maine

Emmer did not travel to Maine only to throw punches. He went to lift up LePage as the opposite model, a candidate he cast as rooted in state pride and national loyalty.

Emmer said:

"These people are anti-American more than anything else. It's time that we have great candidates like Paul LePage, which is why I'm here, who loves his state, loves this country and believes in the promise of America. We should be out there celebrating it and defending it, not tearing it down, that's why you vote for Paul."

That is the ballot test Emmer wants voters to use. Celebrate the country, or tear it down. Defend the promise of America, or apologize for it. He is betting that framing still moves people outside the activist base.

Readers have watched similar ideological battles play out when progressive officials clash with core institutions, as in the fight over Mamdani’s lawsuit to halt New York City teacher bonuses.

Republicans, meanwhile, are defending fragile House and Senate majorities and fighting the usual midterm headwinds that hit the president’s party. Emmer’s tour is part of that ground game: show up, name the stakes, and keep the base from staying home.

Economy pain is real, Emmer says, radical politics is worse

Emmer did not pretend grocery bills and fuel prices are imaginary. He argued Democrats put the economy in a hole, Republicans have been pulling it out, and household costs still matter. He also drew a hard line: sticker shock is not a reason to hand power to the far left.

Emmer said the Biden administration “put this economy in the ditch, literally,” and pointed to inflation not seen in 40 years. He credited President Donald Trump and Republicans in the House and Senate with putting the economy “back on track,” while conceding that $4 gas and $6 diesel remain unacceptable for working families.

Then came the closer that defines his midterms pitch.

Emmer said high prices still are “not enough to vote for a communist.”

In plain terms, he wants cost-of-living anger aimed at the last administration’s record, not converted into support for candidates he calls Marxists and anarchists. That is a discipline argument as much as an economic one. Feel the pain. Do not reward the radicals.

The policy stakes of that leftward turn show up in pocketbook fights too, including lawsuits from New York grocers over a $70 million city-run supermarket plan.

Fox News’s Andrew Mark Miller reported Emmer’s comments as Republicans flood the airwaves with attack ads and Democrats labor under brand trouble and a running fight between their left wing and their establishment. Emmer’s bet is that “anti-American” is not a vibes charge. It is a voting issue if Republicans keep saying it out loud.

Midterms will test whether patriotism still outruns fashion

Emmer’s tour lands at a familiar moment in American politics. The president’s party is defending Congress. Early votes are already being cast. Activists on the left are pushing harder, louder candidates. And Republican leaders are trying to make ideology, not just personality, the ballot question.

He is also drawing a bright line around national memory. Invoking 9/11 and the 3,000 dead, as Emmer did in his attack on El-Sayed’s associations, is meant to end the shrug. If a candidate’s circle treats American loss as deserved, Emmer wants that treated as disqualifying, not edgy.

That focus on respect for the country echoes other flashpoints involving progressive stars, including the uproar after Mamdani and AOC were caught laughing during a 9/11 victims’ name reading.

None of this settles Michigan’s Senate race, Maine’s House contest, or the national map by itself. Emmer is doing something simpler and older. He is telling Republicans what he believes the choice is, naming the candidates he thinks fail the American test, and asking voters to act like the country’s character still matters more than the latest left-wing fashion.

The open question is whether enough voters agree before the ballots are locked in. Emmer is spending his 56-district swing as if the answer depends on who shows up and who refuses to look away.

Across the map, DSA-aligned politics keeps testing how far the party will go, from Senate hopefuls to state voices such as the Colorado Democrat urging more Global South immigrants in elected office.

If candidates who sneer at the country can still climb by calling themselves democrats with an asterisk, the problem is not only on their side of the aisle, it is with anyone willing to pretend the asterisk is harmless.