The difference between red and blue states is a winning message for Republicans



Affordability is consistently rated voters’ number one concern in the midterms, but you don’t hear much about it from Republicans.

There is good reason for this. Messaging on the economy and cost of living is tricky: The administration and this Congress have an impressive record to run on and statistics that show people are better off now than they were two years ago. However, making that case risks alienating voters who are dissatisfied with their own economic circumstances and frustrated by easily observable metrics — like the price of gas and groceries — that suggest the economy is treading water at best.

Blue states show what happens when governments are free to make democratic socialist policies reality.

Yet conservatives should not give up and let Democrats sell their half-baked socialist ideas as the real path to great affordability. The opposite is true. Conservatives know that those policies contributed to the economic misery of the Biden administration and that if they gain power, they will only make economic recovery harder.

That’s why conservatives must first acknowledge that geopolitical energy shocks are eroding good progress on prices and then lean into showing where the cost of living in the United States remains the biggest problem and explain why.

This new ad by Independent Women’s Voice and Unleash Prosperity Now does just that. It zeroes in on a chart built from data from the American Presidential Project and World Population Review, exposing the relationship between high cost of living and areas that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

What it shows is that the higher the concentration of Harris voters, the higher the cost of living — while red areas that most supported Trump enjoy the greatest levels of affordability.

Voters should recognize that those relationships aren’t an accident: States like California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have pursued high regulation, high tax, high spending policies, and those Democratic policies make life more expensive.

Of course, Americans generally are frustrated by the price of gas and blame U.S. actions in Iran. Yet federal policy and the international scene don’t explain why gas is $6.28 on average in California and just $3.84 in Texas. Nor does it explain why gas prices under Democrats when there was no war were nearly as high as they are now.

Electricity prices tell a similar story, with California residents paying $27.04 per kilowatt-hour while Texans pay $9.79.

Same with housing: The average California house costs a jaw-dropping $761,538 compared to $296,424 in Texas. Sure, part of that is attributable to California’s unrivaled natural beauty, but it also reflects policy decisions that have made the state uniquely and needlessly expensive.

Blue states embrace restrictionist policies not just on energy, but on housing and business climates that make it more expensive for businesses to operate and citizens to live. Heavy regulations, high minimum wages, and union rules make everything cost more.

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Moor Studio/Getty Images

Blue states tax their citizens more and have bloated government bureaucracies that discourage innovation and slow everything down. Blue states have also disproportionately tolerated fraud, crime, and illegal immigration, which burden state governments and taxpayers, as well as diminish the quality of life.

That’s why affordability is such a big problem, particularly in blue states. And it’s those same policies — and worse — that Democrats running for Congress and governorships are proposing today, and which would inevitably send America in the wrong direction.

In contrast, this administration and Congress have advanced policies designed to make life more affordable for everyone. Every taxpayer benefits from the provisions in the Working Families Tax Cuts that enabled people to keep more of what they earn, whether it was tips, overtime shifts, Social Security benefits, or higher child tax credits and lower overall rates. This administration has made herculean efforts to eradicate waste, not just by ending fraud but by ripping out departments, programs, and systems that made waste and fraud systemic.

While Americans are just starting to see the benefits of such efforts, the media works to obscure how these reforms will pay dividends for years to come. But most voters know that these efforts are worthwhile, especially compared to how Democrats who had a choice either chose to turn a blind eye to this waste, or were themselves corrupt or incompetent.

Affordability is a messaging battle the GOP should be fighting now and must continue to fight to prevent Democratic policies based on promised freebies without any sound way to pay for them or any thought to the harms they would trigger. Those promises are a gift-wrapped box filled with poisonous snakes: appealing on the outside, but dangerous once opened.

Blue states show what happens when governments are free to make democratic socialist policies reality — and far from advancing affordability, it’s a road that leads to skyrocketing costs and less livable communities. The GOP should ensure voters recognize this reality.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

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Zohran Mamdani sells ‘dignity for all’ — but his utopian promises don’t add up



New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) has made “dignity for everyone” a central pitch for democratic socialism. But when it comes to explaining how he would deliver on that promise, Mamdani answers with silence.

And in recent interviews with Jon Stewart and Theo Von, Mamdani continued to evade the real answers while touting empty platitudes.

“Look, Theo Von is not an economist. That’s not his role,” BlazeTV host Nick Freitas tells Dr. Charles Steele of Hillsdale College. “So, I don’t expect him to ask a lot of probing questions, but I expected a little bit more out of Jon Stewart because both of them essentially asked what democratic socialism was.”

“And Zohran Mamdani’s response to Jon Stewart was, ‘It’s just choosing to wake up every day and fight for the dignity of everyone,’” he continues, adding that when he was speaking to Theo Von, Mamdani explained democratic socialism as “believing in providing kind of a certain quality of life and the dignity of all individuals.”


“And,” Freitas says, “that it’s, quote, ‘the government’s job to make that happen.’”

“What does Mamdani really want to do?” he asks Steele. “How does he plan to make good on these kinds of grandiose promises?”

“He’s a very smooth talker,” Steele responds. “I think he’s very effective. I think he really is either well-trained or really understands how to sound persuasive, but he sounds good. No specifics, nothing like that about how he would accomplish any of the things.”

“We want dignity, and we want everybody to be wealthy and do well and all this sort of thing,” he continues. “Oh, good. But how do you do that? What are the nuts and bolts of your program?”

That’s what he will not get into,” he continues. “Deep down, the DSA is Marxist, fundamentally. If you look at what they advocate, what their end state that they talk about in their latest platform, as they call it, it's really ... what we would think of as being a Marxist utopia.”

“And it’s a fantasy. It’s a dream. They can’t actually achieve it,” he adds.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

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The socialists want a new Constitution. Believe them.



As the midterm elections approach, democratic socialism is attracting renewed attention as an alternative to America’s constitutional order. Recently elected officials in Seattle, Colorado, and New York City, along with dozens of others, identify as democratic socialists. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America has surged, and a recent CNN poll found that a third of Democrats now identify with the movement’s political program.

The goals of the DSA and the promises made in campaign rallies should be understood by all Americans for exactly its aim: a complete overhaul of the U.S. Constitution and the governing laws that have ensured our freedoms for the last 250 years.

A ‘new society’ that eradicates the right to religious liberty is a familiar step down an extremely dark path.

This is not an esoteric challenge to our economic system. It’s a threat to our entire republic.

At the core of all socialist movements, historically and contemporarily, is the supremacy of the collective over the individual, where the state assumes the role of controlling guardian to determine what is “best for society,” squelching individual liberties, all in submission to this ideological monopoly.

As such, the one thing totalitarian governments will never allow is an appeal to a higher authority than the government. There can be no authority higher than the state. That is why socialist-controlled governments have always viewed religious liberty as a threat and target it as one of the first freedoms to dismantle.

That’s why Virginia Democrat Senator Tim Kaine’s remarks during a 2025 hearing deserve attention. The former Democratic Party vice presidential nominee said he found "extremely troubling" "the notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the Creator."

The American founding says otherwise.

The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That formulation is not ornamental. It establishes a limit on government.

If government grants your rights, government can redefine them or take them away. If rights exist before government, then government is bound to respect them.

That’s why religious liberty is the first right protected in the Bill of Rights. Without the right of conscience, all other liberty disappears.

Members of the DSA counter this assessment by pointing to its Religion and Socialism Working Group outreach to the faith communities. In their own words, “DSA’s Religion and Socialism group is open to DSA members of all faiths whose socialism is in some way inspired by their spiritual identity.” In other words, religion is welcomed and approved only if it agrees with the DSA’s socialist ideology, which in essence, then, is a state-endorsed church. All opposing religious viewpoints need not apply.

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In the old Soviet Union, state regulations defined how religious organizations could function, what they could say, and when they could meet. Eventually, church doors were closed, sectarian schools were closed, and religious leaders were incarcerated, all because socialist regimes cannot allow organizations or the populace to appeal to a higher authority than the government.

The commonly repeated pattern with all socialist movements begins with ideological propaganda denouncing all viewpoints that don’t fall in lockstep with its platform. In the case of the DSA, that means throwing out the old and fundamentally changing the very foundations of our government, including religious liberty.

But that’s just the start. In the DSA’s program for the current year, the objective is quite clear: “Our goal is to put workers in charge of the government through a new democratic constitution …” and “Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”

This “new society” would eliminate the three co-equal branches of government that provide essential checks and balances. Gone are the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights that protect the rights of all Americans.

Religious liberty is foundational to a country that values individual freedoms. It defines the relationship between citizens and government by limiting the government’s power and protects freedom of conscience. It is inseparably linked to broad civil liberties including free speech, parental rights, academic freedom, and freedom of assembly.

None of these rights can exist without the foundation of the right of conscience: religious liberty. A “new society” that eradicates this most important right is a familiar step down an extremely dark path. What we need instead is a recommitment to a society that understands and cherishes the liberties protected in our founding documents that have defined us as the “land of the free.”

Host Aghast When Socialist Can’t Answer This Question
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The Wealth Gap Is Real, And Washington Created It

A warning to my fellow Republicans: Offer Americans the hard truth, or socialists will sell them the easy lie.