Some individuals running for Congress are Marxists.

Posted by Speaker Mike Johnson, Oct 29, 2026Checked Oct 29, 2026

Polygraph verdictTrue

Sources: 2 contradict4 support1 context
Said: 1 time·
Confidence: 80%

Speaker Mike Johnson@SpeakerJohnsonOct 29, 2026

The claim that some individuals running for Congress are Marxists is supported by sources showing self-described democratic socialist/DSA-aligned candidates running for Congress in 2026, and by Sawant's self-described openly Marxist congressional campaign (a Seattle-area candidate who lost her primary); the claimant's passage refers to people who 'ran for Congress as Marxists,' which the extracted claim preserves.

This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.

What was said

… The Democrat Party is being taken over by the insurgent left. Hakeem Jeffries will not have a race for speaker because Republicans are going to win. I'll be the speaker in the next Congress. I'll be administering the oath to some of these people who ran for Congress as Marxists, sadly. We'll see what happens. But he's going to have to run. Hakeem wants to remain the leader of the Democrats. He'll be the minority leader if he wins, but they're going to hold him hostage for all sorts of things. This is a taste of what's to come. …

Speaker Mike Johnson@SpeakerJohnson · Oct 29, 2026· from the transcriptPost →

What we found

Supports. Kshama Sawant described her 2026 Washington 9th District congressional campaign as an 'openly Marxist' campaign and won 16.9 percent of the vote before losing the primary.[5]

Supports. House Speaker Mike Johnson and others describe DSA-aligned candidates as self-identified Marxists running for Congress, and Deseret News reports DSA leadership coalitions define themselves as Marxists and communists.[4][6][7]

Contradicts. AP and FactCheck.org find no evidence that major Democratic figures identify as communists, and the Communist Party USA says it knows of no communists running for the House or Senate.[1][2]

Context. PolitiFact notes DSA-aligned congressional candidates are a small slice of Congress and that the DSA is an organization rather than a party.[3]