Nearly every House Democrat voted against a resolution condemning socialism in all its forms, a party-line stand that hands Republicans a ready-made campaign weapon heading into November's midterm elections.
The House passed H.Res. 1490 on Tuesday by a vote of 220, 192, with just eight Democrats crossing the aisle to join a unified Republican caucus. Two additional Democrats voted present. The nonbinding resolution, introduced by Rep. Jeff Crank of Colorado, condemns and denounces socialism in all its forms, names the Democratic Socialists of America by name, and calls for enactment of the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, photo identification to cast a ballot in federal elections, and would direct states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls.
The lopsided result marks a sharp reversal from the last time the House took up a similar measure. In a previous vote in November, 86 Democrats supported a resolution condemning socialism. This time, that number collapsed to eight, a drop that Newsmax reported came after several democratic socialist and allied candidates won Democratic House primaries, in some cases toppling incumbents backed by party leaders.
The eight Democrats who voted yes read like a roster of the party's most vulnerable members: Reps. Kathy Castor and Darren Soto of Florida, Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who has been outspoken in his opposition to the DSA, voted against the resolution but objected to the inclusion of the SAVE America Act language. Fox News reported that top Democratic leaders, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, and Pete Aguilar, all voted no. Gottheimer told Axios he would have supported the measure had it focused solely on denouncing socialism.
"This isn't a serious bill," Gottheimer said.
That framing, treating the resolution as a political stunt rather than a substantive question, became the party's default line. But it left Democrats in the position of refusing to put their names on a document that simply states socialism is a failed and destructive ideology. Republicans noticed.
Crank, the resolution's sponsor, posted on X shortly after the vote:
"The vast majority of Democrats just voted AGAINST my resolution to condemn socialism in all its forms. Socialism is one of the most destructive ideologies in the world, and Democrats REFUSED to denounce its radical values for what it is. Truly terrifying."
In a second post, Crank said House Republicans were "united in pushing back against the rise in socialism" and accused Democratic leadership of refusing to denounce the DSA "for fear of political retribution among their ranks." He called the DSA "an insidious movement within the Democratic Party."
Rep. August Pfluger of Texas put it more bluntly. "Socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried without exception," Pfluger said, as the Washington Examiner reported. "Today's vote puts the Left on the record and removes any doubt about where my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stand."
The Examiner also obtained a House Republican Conference memo advising members to tie socialism, Marxism, and communism together in their 2026 messaging. The memo called communism "far more dangerous and alarming" in the public mind and instructed members to "connect all three together" as "fruit of the same poisonous tree." The strategy is transparent, but the Democrats who voted no gave Republicans exactly the footage they needed to execute it.
Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin took to the House floor to call the resolution "stupid", repeatedly. He argued that the measure "completely ignores the reality of what Americans are worried about today, the rising cost of living caused by the hapless GOP leadership in Congress and an inept White House."
Pocan then pivoted to an argument that undercut his own party's position. He claimed the United States under President Trump "has been more socialist than many actual socialist countries by claiming U.S. government partial ownership in over 30 companies", a claim he offered without documentation on the floor. He also attacked the SAVE America Act provisions in the resolution, calling the bill the "Save America Voter Suppression Act."
Rep. Valerie Foushee of North Carolina went further. She posted on X:
"I'm voting against the House resolution condemning socialism in all its forms. The House should condemn the 34-count felon in the White House, not a bunch of people who just want universal healthcare."
Foushee's framing is worth pausing on. She did not argue that socialism is compatible with American values. She did not dispute the resolution's characterization of the ideology. She simply said the House should be focused on attacking the president instead. And she reduced the entire socialist movement to people who "just want universal healthcare", a description that would surprise the DSA, whose platform extends well beyond health policy.
The New York Post reported that Rep. Rashida Tlaib openly declared herself a DSA member on the House floor during the debate, a moment that reinforced the growing visibility of democratic socialists within the Democratic caucus.
The vote did not happen in a vacuum. The New York Post reported that 123 DSA-endorsed candidates have won primaries in the 2026 cycle, including 19 in congressional races, following the New York City mayoral victory of Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist who, as a state assemblyman, called for "seizing the means of production" and advocated for government-run grocery stores.
Former President Barack Obama endorsed Mamdani during his mayoral campaign, calling him "part of a vision for the future." Minority Leader Jeffries endorsed him as well. That context makes the House vote harder to dismiss as a messaging exercise. When a party's leaders endorse an openly socialist candidate for the nation's largest city and then refuse to vote for a nonbinding resolution condemning socialism, the pattern speaks for itself.
The Washington Free Beacon noted that the previous House vote on a similar resolution saw 98 Democrats vote against it, and even that number was treated as remarkable at the time. The leap from 98 to 192 "no" votes in the span of months reflects either a genuine ideological shift or a calculated decision by Democratic leadership to hold the caucus together against what they view as a Republican trap.
Either explanation should concern voters who believe socialism has no place in American governance. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has been one of the few Democrats willing to call out his own party's socialism problem by name, and his willingness to do so has made him a pariah among progressives and, oddly, more popular among Pennsylvania Republicans than some GOP officeholders.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York framed the stakes in terms the resolution's opponents preferred to avoid. "Let's be clear that socialism is communism lite," Malliotakis said. "Socialism is the first step to communism."
That argument carries particular weight given the resolution's own language. The previous House resolution specifically denounced socialist regimes including Lenin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba, and Maduro's Venezuela, governments collectively responsible for over 100 million deaths, as House Speaker Mike Johnson noted at the time. "America will NEVER embrace Marxism," Johnson said then.
Democrats who voted no this week offered no comparable accounting of socialism's historical record. Their objections centered on the SAVE America Act provisions, on the resolution's timing, and on the argument that Republicans were playing politics. Those objections may be tactically reasonable. But they do not answer the underlying question the resolution posed: Do you condemn socialism, yes or no?
One hundred ninety-two House Democrats answered no. The growing influence of the DSA, and the renewed ties between prominent Democrats and the organization, suggests the answer was not reluctant.
When a party cannot bring itself to condemn an ideology that has produced famine, repression, and economic ruin on every continent where it has been tried, voters are entitled to wonder whether the objection is to the resolution's fine print, or to the condemnation itself.
