Senator Ted Cruz used a September 2026 energy permitting reform summit to deliver one of his sharpest attacks yet on the Democratic Party, claiming that Islamists and Marxists have effectively taken it over. They hate Christians, they hate Jews, they hate the constitution, they hate capitalism and they hate America, Cruz said, painting a picture of a party he believes has been captured by radical factions. The remark wasn't an isolated soundbite; it fits into a pattern Cruz has repeated across multiple recent appearances, from a campaign rally in Iowa to a Fox News interview, each time using nearly identical language to describe what he calls a green-red alliance reshaping Democratic politics.

Cruz pointed to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as his primary example of this alleged convergence, a claim he has made consistently in recent weeks. At an Iowa fundraiser for Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, Cruz called Mamdani the most dangerous and the most powerful Democrat in America, tying him to a broader wave of Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated candidates who have won primaries in states including New York, Michigan, Colorado, Florida, and Oklahoma. He has also linked Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to this same narrative. Both Mamdani and El-Sayed are Muslim, though El-Sayed has publicly rejected the label of democratic socialist, and neither has called for imposing religious law or eliminating capitalism, despite Cruz's characterizations.

According to Cruz, mainstream Democratic leaders privately fear this energized progressive base even as they publicly avoid confronting it directly. He argues that the party's establishment recognizes the political risk posed by rising DSA-aligned candidates but lacks the willingness or ability to push back against them, allowing what he describes as a radical faction to grow in influence election cycle after election cycle. This framing allows Cruz to position himself and his allies as the primary opposition not just to individual Democratic candidates, but to what he presents as a coordinated ideological takeover of the party's institutions and messaging.

Critics, including some fact-checkers, have pushed back hard on these claims, noting that Cruz has not cited specific policy positions from either Mamdani or El-Sayed that support labels like "Islamist" or accusations that they seek to impose religious law. Neither has proposed banning holidays, and neither has publicly embraced the sweeping anti-American, anti-capitalist agenda Cruz describes. Still, the rhetoric appears to be a deliberate and calculated part of Cruz's political strategy heading into a contested midterm cycle, one designed to galvanize conservative voters by framing the election as a fight against an existential ideological threat rather than a conventional policy debate. Whether that message resonates broadly with voters, or simply hardens divides that are already deeply entrenched, remains to be seen as the campaign season intensifies.