Socialist House candidate says he agrees with Republicans on 'one issue'

A socialist candidate vying to unseat a sitting House Democrat says there is "one issue" he agrees with Republicans on.

Michigan state lawmaker Donavan McKinney is among the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members giving establishment Democrats a run for their money across the country ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in November.

Members of the group have shown that they're a potent force among the left's base voters, while also working to appeal to the same working-class, anti-establishment sentiment that helped President Donald Trump get elected in 2016.

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The latest evidence of that is McKinney's tease in a recent interview with Zeteo News, "I gotta give Republicans — I agree with them on this one issue. The one issue is waste, fraud, and abuse."

But he differed with the GOP on where that's coming from.

"Republicans' analysis is there's waste, fraud, and abuse when it comes to the poor. It's kind of like, you know, voting fraud. There's like .0001%, like very small percentage of folks, poor people, take advantage of the system," McKinney said. "The waste, fraud, and abuse is coming from our taxpayer dollars subsidizing our corporations and the wealthy, so they can get richer and we keep being poor."

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"We're gonna attack the waste, fraud, and abuse, but we're going to attack it for the top 1% earners in this country," he added of his goals if elected to the House.

McKinney is running to unseat Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., a progressive who split with the DSA over the party's anti-Israel sentiment.

And during a rally over the weekend, McKinney attempted to appeal to voters who feel the strain of high costs in their everyday lives.

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"All I hear across our communities is that I don't have enough resources to survive. I would define politics, it's pretty simple, it's the redistribution of resources. Well, we have to take our taxpayer money to send it overseas for bombs and weapons, to kill families and children. No more to support genocide. I think that's a damn shame," he said.

"We're in Iran spending billions of dollars a day on average. And you're telling me the people in my district, the seniors, our children, our most vulnerable populations can't get the resources they deserve? I don't think this is America anyone wants us to live in, am I right?"

He also criticized "self-interested" lawmakers in both parties for falling out of touch with what Americans across the country are struggling with.

But on the other side of the aisle, the growing insurgency from the socialist left could provide a boon to Republicans who are fighting an uphill battle to keep control of the House.

GOP leaders across the country are warning that Americans are not interested in socialism or its core beliefs, like the redistribution of wealth and demise of capitalism.

Meanwhile, DSA-linked candidates have already unseated incumbent House Democrats in New York and Colorado.