Will the Democrats somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in this fall’s midterms? That’s the question that has more than a few Democrat strategists glug-glugging the Maalox these days.

History tells us that midterm elections tend to be a bloodbath for the party in power. Everyone knows that. But history has also tended to play out with an out-of-power party that presents a reasonable and attractive alternative to the party in power. And today’s Democrats are increasingly presenting an unreasonable and unattractive alternative to the Republicans.

Elections are about choices. And while Donald Trump’s polling numbers are awful and his Iran war is deeply unpopular, the Democrats — their people and their policies — still look and sound like Rosie O'Donnell.

Polling on the generic ballot question tends to bear this out. That question goes like this: “If the election for the U.S. House of Representatives were held today, would you vote for the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate in your district?”

Historically, when the party in power is struggling, the party out of power enjoys a sizable advantage in the generic question, but as David Strom points out at Hot Air, the Democrats aren’t exactly tearing it up these days.

Consider: At the time of the 2018 midterms, when Donald Trump and the Republicans lost the House but managed to keep the Senate, the Democrats were leading on the generic ballot by 8.4 points. Today, according to the RealClearPolitics average, they’re leading by just 4.7 points. That’s significant — especially in an election in which control of the House will likely come down to around 17 tightly contested races in swing districts. And if the Democrats can’t find a way to drag their increasingly disenchanted black base to the polls in November, look out.

Why are the Democrats trending so poorly when history suggests these midterms are theirs for the taking? Because this isn’t your granddaddy’s Democrat Party. This is the Democrat Party of Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders and Sandy Cortez and James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed — and, yes, it’s the party of Graham Platner. This is the Democrat Socialist Party, not the Democrat Party that has traditionally appealed to everyday Americans. Indeed, that party long ago left town and instead embraced a trifecta of electoral odium: soft on crime, soft on illegal immigration, and soft on the cult of transgenderism. Or, if you prefer to roll all three into one: taxpayer-funded sex-change operations for illegal alien criminals.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: When Mamdani and his fellow flea-bitten Democratic Socialists win, the GOP wins. That’s because the American people are increasingly coming to realize that the Democrat Party has lost its mind.

Still, no one ever lost his shirt by underestimating the cognitive genius of the average American voter. For example, as pollster Scott Rasmussen points out, among voters who view socialism favorably, 74% of them also view free markets favorably. This indicates not only the ability of the human mind to entertain two discordant ideas at once, but also the relative success the Left has enjoyed in building the brand of socialism. The term simply doesn’t carry with it the stench that communism does.

And this is why Donald Trump, at a recent Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, said of the Democrat Party, “It’s becoming a communist party. These are not social Dumocrats; these are hardcore, godless Communists.” And it’s also why the Appropriated Press raced out its “experts” to reassure us that “none of these major political figures in the Democratic Party, even those further out on the left, are identifying as communists.”

Indeed, socialism, communism, and Marxism are increasingly being buoyed by distinctions without a difference. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to a former Democratic Socialist: “I was a member of the DSA from the 2010s until 2022. During that time, I witnessed a rise in extremism, ranging from an eagerness to collaborate with Leninist groups to a growing animosity toward the U.S. and the West.”

Yeeesh.

Both Trump and the Democrats know that this is where that battle for Congress will be fought: on the similarities and differences between socialism and communism. If the Republicans can keep tarring the Democrats and their Democratic Socialist fellow-travelers with the commie brush, they’ll surprise a lot of folks on Tuesday, November 3.