WASHINGTON — Several GOP senators warned that Donald Trump should focus his midterm messaging more on how Republicans plan to help voters and less on casting ultraliberal Democratic candidates as communist monsters.

The president again on Wednesday, during a stop just off the Las Vegas Strip, described a number of democratic socialist candidates who have won Democratic congressional primaries as akin to villains on the big screen. These characters, as he tells it, are hellbent on “voting to destroy America.”

“In Congress, we’re working every day to defend the American dream for you and your children. The radical left, the maniacs, they’re trying to destroy it with the disaster known as, not socialism, communism,” Trump told supporters at the Red Rock Casino as Republicans look to flip three light-blue Nevada House seats.

“The communists want to take their ruinous and deadly ideology of misery and squalor to every state in America, but we’re not going to let them,” he said. “You see it here in the blue states run by Dumocrats, everything’s filthy, dirty all the time. The cities stink, they smell.”

Other top Republicans have echoed Trump. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming used part of a floor speech to call Democrats’ agenda a “manifesto” that was both “dangerous” and “scary.”

In contrast, Abdul El-Sayed — whose past controversial comments on a number of hot-button issues could spell trouble in Michigan’s Senate race against former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee — pushed a less apocalyptic campaign message on Wednesday. “Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All,” he wrote on X.

Republicans contend that many of the policies preferred by progressives and democratic socialists would be economically and politically impossible. But Trump also tends to brush them off, suggesting Republicans “do better against the communists.”

“He won, and so I think I’m happy,” he said, referring to El-Sayed, who prevailed in the Democratic primary this week over moderate Rep. Haley Stevens. “I put out a statement, congratulations to the Republican Party.”

Not so fast, some GOP senators said Wednesday.

Asked if the president should speak more seriously about El-Sayed and other progressive nominees, Senate Budget Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., replied: “Well, I take it seriously. I think it’s profoundly sad that we’re at that stage.”

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who will leave the chamber in January after the president backed his primary foe, cautioned that Trump and other Republicans could be underestimating El-Sayed and his peers.

“I think that’s a real danger. And I think in any election, it’s not enough to disparage your opponent. You got to talk about the positive things that you’re doing for people,” Cornyn said. “And I worry that just disparaging the rabid ideology of the left is not going to be sufficient.”

Like other public opinion surveys for months, a YouGov-Economist survey released this week put economic issues — inflation and prices (34%), jobs and the economy (13%) and health care (12%) — atop Americans’ collective priority list less than 100 days before Election Day.

That’s why Cornyn said he would like to hear Trump talk much more about “kitchen table issues.”

“We are involved in a conflict in Iran, but frankly, that’s not that popular, and those kinds of issues never win elections,” said the longtime senator and elected state official. “So he needs to pay more attention to domestic issues and affordability.”

To that end, Indiana GOP Sen. Todd Young on Wednesday ticked off his constituents’ top issues during a gaggle with reporters: “It’s affordability or prices. It’s, for many, national security. It is making sure that our elections go as planned. So those are my priority issues.”

‘Setting records’

On stage in Las Vegas, Trump did focus more on economic issues than he has at some of his other stops this midterm cycle. He said Republicans’ 2025 tax and domestic spending law helped keep money in the pockets of tipped workers, for example — though that policy does not affect a large swath of the electorate.

Trump also told the Vegas audience that their investment accounts have been surging due to his economic policies, saying the “typical American 401(k)” is “setting records day after day, week after week.” That part of his campaign trail spiel could potentially catch on with some voters worried about their financial standing; a Gallup analysis updated last May found that 62% of Americans reported owning stocks.

Still, the leading ultraliberal voice in the Senate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, on Wednesday was all but daring Trump to continue his communist messaging.

“What I hope everybody appreciates is that what happened in Michigan yesterday is literally unprecedented in modern American history. What Abdul had to do is take on the entire Michigan Democratic establishment. He took on the national Democratic establishment,” Sanders told reporters before highlighting how El-Sayed overcame a campaign cash disadvantage.

Sanders said Republican candidates will be hamstrung by Trump’s “illegal and unconstitutional war” with Iran.

“So you know what they’re going to campaign on? Breaking news: Abdul El-Sayed is a Muslim — wow. Maybe we can foment some racism there, or he’s a quote-unquote communist because he believes that health care is a human right,” he added. “They’ve got nothing to say. We’re going to win.”

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