Newt Gingrich details plan for senators to win big in November: Exploit ‘weird’ socialist values

Newt Gingrich has been running this playbook since roughly the Clinton administration, and the funny thing is it still works because Democrats keep handing him the material. You don't need to manufacture a caricature of the socialist left when Zohran Mamdani is literally the DSA's highest-profile officeholder in the country and city council members in places like Chicago and Minneapolis are voting on rent control boards and defunding proposals in the same news cycle. Gingrich isn't inventing "weird values" as an attack line. He's pointing at a real faction that has real power inside the Democratic coalition and daring anyone to defend it out loud.

That's the part that should worry Democratic strategists more than Gingrich's memo does. Every time a Squad member or a DSA-backed candidate says something about open borders, abolishing ICE, or letting biological men compete in women's sports, it becomes a 30-second ad that writes itself. Republicans don't have to lie or distort anything. They just have to hit play.

Where this gets tricky is discipline. Gingrich's advice only pays off if candidates actually stay on message and let the other side's own words do the damage, instead of getting baited into culture-war sideshows that let Democrats change the subject to affordability or healthcare. The 1994 revolution worked because Gingrich nationalized the midterms around a clear contrast, not vibes. If 2026 candidates run the same play with the same discipline, this isn't some cynical trick. It's just pointing a camera at what the other side already believes.