US President Donald Trump has sharply escalated his warnings about the dangers of communism in the past two weeks, a Reuters analysis found, as his political team tests whether the message resonates beyond his core supporters ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Trump’s use of the term accelerated after June 23, when a string of left-wing Democratic candidates won primary contests in New York, the analysis of his public comments and social media posts found.
Since then, Trump has invoked communism 81 times, calling some of the victorious candidates “hardcore, godless communists.”
Preliminary findings from his team’s focus groups suggest the message strongly energises Trump’s base and could boost turnout among infrequent Republican voters, according to two people familiar with the matter. But it appears less effective with independents – often decisive in closely fought contests – and younger voters who did not live through the Cold War.
The success of democratic socialists and other progressive candidates in Democratic primaries in Colorado, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere has given Trump and his fellow Republicans a fresh line of attack: portraying Democrats as extreme rather than defending Trump’s record on tackling the high cost of living.
Many of the progressive candidates argue that tackling affordability means taxing the rich, cutting military spending, opposing US funding for Israel, expanding government-funded programmes and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Trump – known for blunt political branding – has been swift to label supporters of those proposals as communists. Many of the candidates, however, identify as democratic socialists who advocate pursuing progressive policies through elections, while communism seeks to abolish private ownership of property and create a classless society.
Olivia Wales, a White House spokeswoman, said “Democrats’ embrace of socialism and communism” is an “existential threat to our country” and Trump will “keep calling out their radicalism and drawing a sharp contrast with his commonsense, America First agenda.”
In his July Fourth speech to Americans marking the 250th anniversary of the country’s Declaration of Independence from Britain, Trump warned against the rise of communism, likening it to a cancer that had to be removed.
“You’ve got to cut it out, and you got to cut it out fast,” he told a rally on the National Mall in Washington.
By portraying Democrats as socialists and communists, Trump has revived one of the oldest weapons in American politics. Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan both used this line of attack during the Cold War. But Trump’s decision to use a traditionally nonpartisan Independence Day celebration to attack political opponents marked an unusual setting for the message.
Behind the scenes, Trump’s aides are testing the new message with focus groups as Republicans prepare for the hardest-fought stretch to the November elections, which will decide control of the US Congress.
The preliminary findings indicate that “communism” can be more potent than “socialism” in some races, while “socialism” may have broader appeal in paid ads and district-level messaging, one of the two people familiar with the focus groups said.
Republicans see the message resonating in particular with Hispanic voters in Florida – where anti-socialist appeals have long found traction with voters whose families fled leftist governments in Latin America – and Texas.
A 2025 opinion poll from Gallup found Americans still viewed socialism more negatively than positively, with 57 per cent holding a negative view and 39pc a positive one, though Democrats were more favourable towards socialism than capitalism.
&uuid=(email))