Vice President JD Vance said Saturday that Democrats are moving further toward the left after several self-described progressive and socialist candidates won prominent local races across the country.
During an appearance on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Vance argued that the party has responded to its 2024 election loss by embracing its most left-wing members rather than moderating.
“My genuine hope was that the lesson the Democrats learned from the 2024 election is maybe we should stop being so crazy,” Vance said.
“And unfortunately, the lesson that Democrats seem to have learned from the 2024 election is to lean into the most radical fringes of their party.”
Vance’s remarks came after a series of victories by candidates aligned with socialist or progressive politics. Janeese Lewis George, a socialist member of the Washington, D.C., City Council, won Thursday’s Democratic mayoral primary in the nation’s capital.
In Maine, progressive Senate candidate Graham Platner appeared last month with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a “Fighting Oligarchy” rally. Platner has since won the Democratic nomination and is set to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a socialist, also joined Sanders this week for a get-out-the-vote event in Brooklyn. The two campaigned in support of several socialist and progressive candidates before Tuesday’s New York primaries.
Vance said those developments show that the Democratic Party is drifting away from the kind of voters he grew up around.
“I was raised by patriotic Christian blue-collar Democrats who loved this country, but they weren’t Republicans,” Vance said.
“But I feel, unfortunately, that those patriotic blue-collar Democrats, they increasingly don’t have a place in that party anymore, at least among the elected senior leadership ranks.”
The vice president also rejected the argument that socialist candidates are the true champions of working-class Americans. He pointed specifically to calls from some on the left to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying that position would damage American workers by encouraging more illegal immigration and increasing competition for lower-wage jobs.
“I always find it interesting when socialists tell me that they really stand up for working people, and they want to protect working people, but they want to abolish ICE,” Vance said.
“That means a flood of low-wage immigrants coming into this country, competing for wages against the working people, Black, White and Brown of the United States of America,” he continued.
Vance said border enforcement and immigration policy are directly tied to wages and job opportunities for Americans.
“You do not care about working people if you refuse to enforce the border,” he said. “Stop pretending that you do.”
His comments fit into a broader Republican message heading into the next election cycle, with GOP leaders portraying Democrats as increasingly aligned with the far left on immigration, policing, the economy and cultural issues.
Democrats, meanwhile, have argued that progressive candidates are gaining support because voters are frustrated with high costs, stagnant wages and a political system they believe favors wealthy interests. Sanders and other left-wing figures have made that argument central to their recent campaigning, particularly at rallies focused on income inequality and corporate power.
But Vance said the rise of those candidates should concern voters who once saw the Democratic Party as a home for working-class moderates. In his view, the party’s current leadership is rewarding its activist wing while leaving behind voters who are socially moderate, religious, pro-labor or concerned about border security.
The fight over that message is likely to remain a major theme as Republicans try to tie Democratic candidates to the party’s most progressive voices, especially in competitive Senate, House and mayoral races.
