Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., warned that a “hammer-and-sickle wave” is taking over the Democratic Party — and what’s happening in New York and Michigan primaries right now is a preview of the 2028 presidential race.
“You get this hammer-and-sickle wave we saw in New York — that is not going to be an isolated incident,” Schmitt told Fox News Digital. “That is a flashing red light. It is a red flag.”
“Their primaries now are going to be dominated by these people who want to go to war with Western civilization. I mean, I’m not making this up, this is what they say they want to do. And so their [2028] presidential primary will be defined by this ideology.”
Several insurgent progressive and far-left candidates have toppled more moderate Democratic incumbents in primary contests during this midterm election cycle.
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chosen candidates made a clean sweep in June. Two incumbents, Reps. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., were defeated by progressives with the Mamdani stamp of approval — Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier, respectively.
In Michigan, one of the most notable far-left candidates is Abdul El-Sayed, who is locked in a messy primary fight with Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., for a Senate seat.
Schmitt contended that Democrats’ position on immigration is driving the party’s hard-left turn.
“I think they’ve just decided that their only chance of being successful electorally is through their immigration policy, and so, they’ve completely dismissed the arguments of Bill Clinton and even Harry Reid,” Schmitt said.
Senate Democrats are now bucking an old policy once championed by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. In the 1990s, Reid pushed legislation that would have changed birthright citizenship — just like how Schmitt and other Republicans are doing now after the Supreme Court’s decision upholding birthright citizenship earlier this month.
Schmitt said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who was mentored by Reid, is on notice by his own party given how far left the political winds are blowing.
His main political adversary could be one of the poster children of the progressive movement: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
“Chuck Schumer, if he survives to even be minority leader again, you know, next term, there’s just no way he’s not going to have a primary challenge by AOC or somebody else.”
“I mean, I think he’s probably going to chair the ‘AOC for president campaign’ so … she doesn’t run against him, but there’s going to be somebody else,” Schmitt said. “And the money and the energy on the Democrat side right now are these radical leftist communists.”
