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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is capitalizing on Democrats’ internal civil war as he crisscrosses the country in a bid to keep the House majority for Republicans in November.
During a campaign stop in Virginia Beach on Monday, Johnson name-checked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as he described the wave of socialist-linked primary wins in Jeffries’ home state.
“It’s a fascinating thing to see the Democrat Party, they’re in the midst of, now, an open civil war. Truly, they don’t know who they stand, what they stand for, or who stands with them. They don’t have a leader,” Johnson said.
It comes after candidates linked to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani toppled establishment-backed candidates, including two sitting House Democrats.
JOHNSON TURNS DEMOCRATS’ SOCIALIST CIVIL WAR INTO NEW WEAPON FOR MIDTERMS
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., attend the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance ceremony in Emancipation Hall on April 14, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“Hakeem Jeffries is the top leader, the Democrat leader in the House. But he lost his slate of candidates in his own backyard,” Johnson said. “Several weeks ago, you saw Mamdani endorsed a slate of radical far-left candidates, DSA-approved and endorsed candidates, and they all won. And one of those races was in the Bronx, in Hakeem Jeffries’ own backyard.”
The specific race Johnson was referring to saw Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., defeated by socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York’s 13th Congressional District. The area spans parts of the Bronx and Upper Manhattan.
In the 10th Congressional District, encompassing part of western Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, former DSA member Brad Lander defeated Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y.
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Both incumbents were endorsed by Jeffries, as is usually the case. Both Chevalier and Lander were backed by Mamdani, himself a DSA member.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during the annual New York State Financial Control Board meeting on Aug. 12, 2026, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Socialist Claire Valdez, also a Mamdani-backed candidate, won a Brooklyn- and Queens-area House seat being vacated by Rep. Nydia Velázquez. Jeffries did not endorse in that race, but it’s notable that Velázquez’s chosen successor lost.
Jeffries’ own district sits entirely in Brooklyn. Despite that, however, neither Chevalier nor Valdez has publicly backed Jeffries to remain House Democrats’ leader.
It’s a microcosm of the wider fight playing out across the country between the establishment party and a far-left insurgency. The war has proved to be a boon for Republicans who are facing an uphill battle to keep their razor-thin House majority.
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Johnson, who was in Virginia campaigning for endangered House Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., compared Democrats to a “rudderless ship.”
“But the thing that is so, I think alarming — let me use that word, alarming, for the American people — is that you have open Marxists who are winning primaries in that party,” Johnson said before referencing the DSA’s own platform.
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Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., walks through the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 10, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
“The challenge is coming from people who, you know, they put their platform out, they published it. They want to abolish the border. They want to abolish all prisons in America. They want to abolish the U.S. Senate. They want to remove the president. They want to expand the House and make it a unicameral governing body over the country. Why? Because they believe that over two or three cycles, they’ll be able to bring a wave of Marxists, communists into the Congress and take it over.”
When reached for a response, a spokesperson for Jeffries referred Fox News Digital to an exchange between the House Democratic leader and NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristin Welker on Sunday.
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“I expect that there will be at least 220 members of the House Democratic Caucus when we take back the majority, if not a number much greater than that,” Jeffries said in response to a question about challengers from the left toppling incumbents. “We as House Democrats are committed to fighting for an affordable America every day, every week, every month until we solve this crisis.”
