Trump Carried His District in 2024. Now His Message to His Own Party Is: Drop the Socialism.
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY-3) holds one of the most fragile seats in the House — a Long Island district Joe Biden carried by 11 points in 2020 and Donald Trump carried by 4 points in 2024, one of only 23 Democratic-held districts Trump won that year. On August 2, Suozzi told Fox News Digital exactly how he plans to defend it: by publicly fighting the socialist wing of his own party.
“I don’t ascribe to any of those ideas at all, and I think that there’s very little support for those ideas,” Suozzi said, comparing the Democratic Socialists of America’s rising influence inside his party to the House Freedom Caucus’s grip on Republicans. “I fight back against it.”
The fight has a name, a launch date, and a growing signature list — and it has already drawn return fire from the wing of the party it’s aimed at, and a counter-attack from the Republicans it’s meant to help fend off.
- 1 of 23 Democratic-held House districts Trump carried in 2024 — including Suozzi's NY-3 — Ballotpedia
- 13+ House Democrats who signed Suozzi's "Promise to America" pledge declaring "we're capitalist, not socialist" — Washington Post
- 85% how often the NRCC claims Suozzi voted with "the radical left" — the GOP's own attack line against the pledge — NRCC
Suozzi won New York’s 3rd District — Nassau County and a slice of northeast Queens — in a February 2024 special election after Republican George Santos was expelled from Congress, then held it that November. The district itself moved hard underneath him: Biden carried it 55%–44% in 2020; Trump carried it 51%–47% in 2024. The National Republican Congressional Committee has targeted the seat for 2026, backing 2024 nominee Mike LiPetri (R) in a rematch. Third Way’s Jim Kessler calls it “a true swing district” — and Suozzi is treating it that way.
On NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) himself, Suozzi is careful to separate the man from the movement: “a very smart guy,” “very charismatic,” but someone whose policies he fundamentally rejects. On the label itself, he isn’t careful at all: “I don’t like the idea of them using ‘democratic.’ I think that we should be, as the Democratic Party, should be fighting against that.”
Watch my full interview with Marcia Kramer. To win on affordability and the economy, Democrats need to reclaim Democratic capitalism, an approach that puts workers, families, and small businesses at the center of growth.
The vehicle for that fight is a document called the “Promise to America,” launched June 25, 2026, two days after a slate of DSA- and Mamdani-aligned candidates won Democratic House primaries in New York City — part of a wider pattern of DSA-backed candidates beating establishment incumbents in New York and Colorado that cycle. Suozzi co-led the pledge with Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA). Its text is blunt: “We’re capitalist, not socialist. We’re for safety, not lawlessness. We’re proud, not ashamed of America, and we’re mainstream, we’re not extreme.”
More than a dozen House Democrats signed on, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Susie Lee (D-NV), Don Davis (D-NC), Vicente Gonzalez Jr. (D-TX), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Janelle Bynum (D-OR), Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI), and Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), plus several 2026 candidates — nearly all of them, like Suozzi, holding or seeking seats in districts Trump won or nearly won.
PROMISE TO AMERICA: 13 moderate Democrats are banding together against Democratic socialists... @RepTomSuozzi is leading the charge
The DSA wing didn’t bother engaging the argument. Asked about Suozzi, Mamdani brushed him off entirely: “I have yet to meet a New Yorker who has asked me about the opinions of Tom Suozzi in regards to what it means to lead this city.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) went further, working an earlier Suozzi remark that DSA members “should create their own party” into a fundraising email built around the resulting New York Post headline. DSA communications director Priscilla Yeverino offered the movement’s own one-line rebuttal to the Washington Post: “Socialism is mainstream.”
The sharpest edit came from the pledge’s own side of the aisle: The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky argued the letter praises competition and capitalism while conspicuously avoiding the word “monopoly” — evidence, he wrote, that the centrists are dodging the harder argument rather than making it.
The Radical Left Lunatics, often referred to as Dumocrats, have lost control of their Party. They are being led by loud and unattractive people who have totally lost their way. Hopefully, they will fight back, and not let this sick, Communist ideology, take over America!
Posted two weeks after the Promise to America's launch — Trump's own framing of the same intra-party fight, aimed at the party generally rather than Suozzi by name.
Republicans, meanwhile, argued the pledge changes nothing on paper. The morning after the launch, NRCC spokeswoman Maureen O’Toole called it “worth less than the paper it’s printed on,” and the committee’s own tally claims Suozzi and Gillen voted with “the radical left” 85% and 84% of the time, respectively — a Republican-calculated figure, not an independent one. LiPetri put the same argument in campaign terms: “The residents of NY-03 are smart – they see through the phoniness.”
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY-3) — co-authored the “Promise to America” pledge; faces a 2026 rematch in a district Trump won.
Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA) — co-author of the pledge.
Mike LiPetri (R) — 2026 GOP nominee for NY-3, backed by the NRCC’s targeting effort.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) — the DSA-aligned wing the pledge is aimed at.
None of the pledge’s signers are pretending it settles the argument. Suozzi’s own diagnosis of his party, in a CBS New York interview the week before the Fox piece, was unsparing: Democrats should be focused on affordability and the economy, he said, but “the brand is a mess.” Whether “we’re capitalist, not socialist” actually moves persuadable voters in a district Trump just carried, or simply gives Republicans a new attack line to quote back at signers in campaign ads, is a question next November settles — not a press release.
Many Communists running in badly failing Blue States. The votes seem to have them doing quite well against each other. The bad news is that history has conclusively shown that the downtrodden States that they will soon be running will ONLY GET WORSE.
Posted the same week DSA-aligned candidates swept a round of NYC primaries — the news cycle the Promise to America pledge was launched to answer.
A Democrat holding a district Trump carried by four points is now running two campaigns at once — one against Republicans, one against his own party’s socialist wing. Mamdani won’t engage him. AOC is fundraising off him. The DSA calls its politics mainstream. The NRCC calls his pledge fake and cites his own voting record against him. Thirteen-plus House Democrats signed the same promise Suozzi did — almost all of them, like him, sitting in seats where the label “socialist” is the opposition’s easiest attack ad.
