Now Republicans Are the Out-of-Touch Party

Republicans spent years calling Democrats out of touch. This fall, they're running against a socialist caricature while voters ask about prices.

In Kansas, a Republican ad puts Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist pastor running for Senate, in front of footage of dancing drag queens and says he “preaches the gospel of woke.” The quote the ad attributes to Hamilton about gender doesn’t exist. It was stitched together from separate sentences in a 2021 podcast.

In Iowa, Rep. Ashley Hinson’s first ad after her primary paired operating-room footage with the claim that Democrat Josh Turek supports “sex changes for kids.” PolitiFact rated it False.

And in seven Senate battlegrounds, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is airing an ad warning that when it comes to socialism, the enemy “isn’t just at the gate; they’re in the house.”

With less than two weeks to go, Democrats are talking about grocery bills and rent. Republicans are warning about a socialist takeover that exists only in their ads.

That’s a reversal. For years, the charge against Democrats was that we spent too much time on things voters didn’t care about. A study commissioned by the group Welcome found the share of voters calling the Democratic Party “out of touch” climbed from 51% in 2013 to 70% in 2025. (yikes!)

We need to own that. It was a real failure: a party talking past the people it wanted to represent. It cost us the election in 2024.

Ask voters what this election is about and they give the same answer, poll after poll: the economy and affordability. One survey found fewer than 1% name “wokeness” or transgender issues as the most important problem facing the country.

Now Republicans are the ones talking about issues voters don’t care about, and the culture-war playbook they could always fall back on has lost its punch. Even some Republicans see it. Former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan said his party was still running transgender ads after spending $100 million or $125 million, and nothing had moved the needle in the Senate race in a month.

When the culture war stops working, Republicans reach for their other old standby: socialism. An NRCC ad targeting 25 House Democrats claims they want to turn America into a “socialist, crime-filled dystopia.” A House Republican memo even advised members to tie Democrats to communism, because voters find that word scarier.

Look at the actual numbers. When the Tea Party took over the Republican Party in 2010, its candidates won about 40 House seats. This year, a handful of DSA-backed candidates won House primaries, almost all in deep-blue districts Democrats already hold. Even if every one of them wins, democratic socialists will make up less than 2% of the House. That’s not a takeover. It’s a rounding error.

There’s another problem for Republicans: it’s hard to campaign as the party of limited government when they are the ones expanding its reach. This administration has shown little hesitation to use the power of government against opponents, pressure private companies over how they operate, and blur the lines between public service and private financial interests. That’s a long way from the small-government conservatism Republicans once championed. The question isn’t whether government should be big or small anymore. It’s who gets to wield its power, and against whom.

Voters have noticed. In a September Fox News poll, 55% of voters viewed the Democratic Socialists of America unfavorably, but even more, 63%, said the same about MAGA. And independents, the voters who decide midterms, favor Democrats for Congress 53% to 31%.

So Republicans are spending millions warning voters about a label they dislike while running under one they dislike even more. That’s what out of touch really looks like. Republicans want voters to fear what socialists might do with government power someday. Voters don’t have to imagine what MAGA does with it–they have been watching it for almost two years.

All of this adds up to one thing: the old Republican playbook is dead. When a party has a record it can’t run on, it changes the subject. Republicans can’t campaign on the One Big Beautiful Bill, so they’re campaigning on drag queens and socialists instead, hoping fear will do what their record can’t. For a long time, that worked. It doesn’t anymore, because for most voters the scariest thing on the ballot isn’t a democratic socialist in Brooklyn. It’s the party that’s been in charge while their bills keep going up.

Republicans spent years telling voters that Democrats weren’t listening. They were right, and we learned that lesson the hard way. On November 3, it’s their turn.

John McCarthy is a Democratic Advisor with experience ranging from the White House, the Congress, and Presidential campaigns. Follow him on X: @JohnWMcCarthy