Source: Politics
Democrats hoping to win higher office this year are seizing on President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela to push a twist on one of his campaign promises: America first.
Across the country, candidates and lawmakers are slamming Trump’s decision to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and are using the moment to hammer their domestic affordability message.
“Ohioans are facing higher costs across the board and are desperate for leadership that will help deliver relief,” former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running to reclaim his seat, said on X. “We should be more focused on improving the lives of Ohioans – not Caracas.”
The frame from Democrats shows how potent the party views affordability as an issue in the midterms, one that Trump and his team have grown increasingly preoccupied by after across-the-board losses in 2025.
“The problem Trump was already having was that he looked like he was focused on everything other than what matters in people’s daily life,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “And now he’s just supercharged that.”
Trump won in 2024 largely by running on affordability, and his less interventionist “America First” approach helped him win over more isolationist voters who had been alienated by the neoconservative approach of the Republican Party in the Iraq War era. But continuing economic uncertainty and persistent inflation, combined with his second-term shift towards a more aggressive foreign policy approach, threaten to hurt the president and his party at the ballot box.
Polling shows that cost of living will remain top of voters’ minds before November, something that Ferguson said “transcends every subgroup.”
In some of the party’s most competitive 2026 midterm primaries, Democrats are coalescing around messaging on Venezuela.
In Michigan, where the war in Gaza drew clear fissures between Democratic opponents, all three candidates sang the same domestically-focused tune.
“Americans have made themselves crystal clear: they don’t want to risk sliding into another costly war abroad. Families are struggling to buy groceries. People are skipping doctor’s visits because they can’t pay for healthcare,” state Sen. Mallory McMorrow said in a statement.
“Make no mistake, this is about enriching his oil executive donors who want access to Venezuela’s oil — not about democracy or Maduro or narcotics. Meanwhile, they tell us we can’t afford healthcare at home,” Abdul El Sayed, the former head of the Wayne County Department of Health, wrote on X.
“Taking over another country while Americans can’t afford their rent and groceries is unacceptable,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
The issue isn’t just being used by midterm hopefuls. Potential Democratic 2028 candidates are bringing affordability to the forefront of their Venezuela messaging.
“As of this week, millions of Americans are now paying thousands more for health insurance,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday. “If the President and Congressional GOP think Washington has the capacity to ‘run’ Venezuela right now, why won’t they fix the insurance cost crisis they’ve created here at home?”
Longtime Miami-based Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert thinks his party is right to remind voters of what they see as failures in Trump’s domestic agenda as he sets his sights abroad, including on cost of living issues — as long as that messaging doesn’t overshadow a cogent perspective on how they would approach relations with Venezuela. South Florida is home to one of the biggest Venezuelan communities in the country, which has been shaken by Trump’s recent revocation of Temporary Protected Status for those fleeing Maduro’s regime.
“Democrats need to also appreciate that many things can be true. It’s not a single issue, especially in this moment, and we have to talk about it in a way where you can join Venezuelans in speaking up that Maduro being gone is a victory for Venezuelans,” Ulvert said.
Some Democrats who served in foreign wars have also chosen to center a critique of American interventionism in addition to joining in on the party’s pivot back to cost of living.
Graham Platner, a veteran of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan who is now running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, has seized on Trump’s vague suggestions that the U.S. will run Venezuela following Maduro’s forced ouster.
“Bullshit. This has never worked,” Platner posted in response to a clip of the president’s Saturday morning remarks. “I watched my friends die in Iraq in the wake of speeches like this one.”
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego — an Iraq War veteran — has been outspoken on the American military action in Venezuela, flooding social media and cable news with broadsides aimed at Trump. He expressed a similar frustration: “I fought in some of the hardest battles of the Iraq War. Saw my brothers die, saw civilians being caught in the crossfire all for an unjustified war. No matter the outcome we are in the wrong for starting this war in Venezuela.”
Republicans, however, are backing Trump and praising the action he took against Maduro.
“Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans after years of trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into our country — crimes for which he’s been properly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued — and today he learned what accountability looks like,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on X the day the operation became public.