House Republicans are closing out the midterm campaign with a blunt argument: the election is a referendum on one question — who runs your life, you or the government.
In an opinion piece laying out the House GOP’s closing argument, Republicans point to their record since taking the majority in January 2025, citing what they call the most secure southern border in modern American history after record levels of illegal crossings under President Joe Biden. They say families in El Paso, Texas no longer worry about migrants roaming the streets at night.
Republicans also credit their policies with the largest recorded drop in violent crime in FBI history, arguing that a mother in Chicago can now let her son play outside after school without worry.
On economic policy, the piece touts the Working Families Tax Cuts as the largest tax cut for the middle class in American history, including “No Tax on Tips,” “No Tax on Overtime,” and a tax break for seniors. Republicans say the cuts put money back in the pockets of workers like a waitress finishing a double shift, a lineman on the job, and a retiree who spent a lifetime working. The piece notes every Democrat in Congress voted against the tax cuts.
Republicans also point to the federal government shrinking to its smallest size since 1966 and rolling back regulations they say drove up prices on cars and appliances and blocked Americans from starting businesses.
The Socialism Warning
The piece turns sharply toward the Democratic Socialists of America, describing it as a national organization with more than 120,000 members that calls for collective ownership of major parts of the economy and works toward the end of capitalism. Republicans note more than 250 DSA-backed Democrats currently hold office across the country.
The op-ed argues socialism is a stepping stone to communism, invoking Karl Marx’s 1875 “Critique of the Gotha Programme” and Vladimir Lenin’s 1917 “The State and Revolution,” both of which describe socialism as the first phase of a transition to communism.
To illustrate the stakes, the piece points to Havana, Cuba, where it says decades of decline have left once-grand buildings crumbling; North Korea, described as a dark patch on satellite images of a nation that should be lit up at night; and the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, where people stood in line for hours for empty shelves.
“Any party that has room for communism is not a party that serves the dream this country was founded on, the dream of a citizenry guided by self-rule.”
House Republicans frame the choice ahead as one between an American tradition of individual agency — carried through the Revolution, the fight against slavery, the Great Depression, the war in Indochina, a terror attack, and multiple technological revolutions — and a political movement they say is willing to set that tradition aside.
The closing message: America’s Constitution rests on trust in the individual, and voters this midterm cycle are being asked whether to keep that inheritance or hand more control of their lives to Washington.
