NJGOP hits socialist Dems in new ad knocking "terrible ideas"

The video names names — and borrows its title from the Democrats' own internal critics.

The New Jersey Republican Party opened a new front in its general election messaging Monday, releasing a video titled “Terrible Ideas” that portrays the state’s Democratic Party as increasingly captured by its socialist wing — and borrows its title from the Democrats’ own internal critics.

The video arrives as candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America continue to rack up primary victories nationwide, a surge that has drawn alarm not only from Republicans but from prominent Democrats. CNN commentator Van Jones, among the party’s best-known progressives, blasted the DSA’s platform last month in terms the NJGOP was evidently happy to adopt: “Ideas matter. And these are terrible ideas.”

““The Democratic Party of New Jersey is being pulled to the radical left by activists and political extremists,” said NJGOP Chairwoman Christine Giordano Hanlon. “The party that once claimed to represent working families is increasingly controlled by those who have lost touch with the values and concerns of hardworking New Jerseyans who are struggling with an affordability crisis and concerned about safety.”

The Radical Roster Grows

The spot builds on what the state party calls a growing list of radicalized Democratic candidates and officeholders. Three feature prominently.

Adam Hamawy, the Democratic front-runner in the 12th Congressional District, has called for dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and defunding the military, according to the release. But the most explosive material concerns his past: Hamawy appeared as a defense witness at the 1995 federal terrorism trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman — the “Blind Sheikh” convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot. A June investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, building on earlier Washington Free Beacon reporting, examined the trial transcript and concluded that Hamawy’s sworn testimony — in which he characterized a 1991 Detroit gathering headlined by Abdel-Rahman as an “economy conference” — was contradicted by the government’s own transcript of the event, which recorded the cleric’s address as an extended call to jihad. Under cross-examination by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Hamawy ultimately conceded the speech “was a jihad,” per the IPT’s account. Hamawy has not responded to detailed questions from multiple outlets about the testimony, and his campaign biography makes no mention of the trial.

Rep. Analilia Mejia, the self-described democratic socialist who won April’s special election in the 11th District by nearly 20 points, campaigned on Medicare for All, a $25 federal minimum wage, a wealth tax, and abolishing ICE — an agenda championed by her endorsers Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mejia, a former national political director for the Sanders 2020 campaign, filled the seat vacated by Gov. Mikie Sherrill and is widely expected to align with the House’s “Squad.” On the trail, she was unambiguous about ICE: it cannot be reformed and should be eliminated.

Rebecca Bennett rounds out the trio. The release describes her as having embraced the progressive slate wholesale — supporting efforts to impeach President Trump, acknowledging a desire to raise taxes, and, in the party’s framing, prioritizing illegal immigrants over New Jersey citizens.

A National Fight Hits Home

The video lands amid a broader reckoning over what the DSA actually believes. National outlets from the Wall Street Journal to The Free Press have spent the summer dissecting the organization’s newly adopted platform. Jake Altman, a former DSA member of roughly a decade, wrote in The Free Press that the organization’s stated aims go well beyond healthcare and wages — encompassing the elimination of the presidency and Supreme Court, abolition of the Senate and prisons, public ownership of major industries, and the closure of American military bases overseas. Altman described a rise in extremism during his years inside the organization, including growing hostility toward the United States itself.

“Even mainstream Democrats are calling out this leftward surge, characterizing the ideology as ‘terrible ideas.’” — NJGOP Chairwoman Christine Hanlon

That is the ideological current the NJGOP argues is now flowing into Trenton and the state’s congressional delegation. Hanlon put it plainly: a growing number of New Jersey Democrats are moving left simply to appease the progressive base of their party.

The party’s closing contrast is the one Republicans intend to ride through November — affordability, public safety, and economic opportunity against what they cast as ideological warfare. “While Democrats fight each other over who can be more extreme,” Hanlon said, Republicans remain focused on lowering costs and delivering results for the Garden State.

The Democratic Socialists of America has surpassed 120,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in U.S. history. It recently exceeded the peak membership of the early 20th-century Socialist Party of America led by Eugene V. Debs, which reached roughly 113,000 dues-paying members in 1912.

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