ABC News didn’t send a reporter to the GOP convention to cover Republicans.
She had a different assignment.
What Democrats just admitted in writing makes her damage control attempt much harder.
ABC News Liberal Bias on Display at the 2026 Republican Convention
ABC News reporter Averi Harper went on camera at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas to tell viewers that Republicans calling Democrats "radical and leftist" was out of bounds.
Harper wasn’t reporting, she was doing PR.
Her exact words: "Many of [convention speakers] are calling the — the Democratic Party radical and leftist, many speaking to the rise of progressive and democratic socialist candidates that we've seen in places across the country, painting the entire party with a broad brush."
Then she made sure to balance the ledger for Democrats: "They've also spoken about issues pertaining to the border, issues pertaining to public safety, the notion of fighting for freedom, and patriotism have been among the themes that we've heard most often from the stage tonight."
Border security and socialism landed in the same breath – as if only one of them is burning the Democrat Party to the ground in November.
Harper's job at that convention was to get in front of a story Republicans are making the centerpiece of their entire midterm strategy. The GOP's first-ever midterm convention made one argument above all others: the Democrat Party has been taken over by socialists, and every Democrat on the ballot in November owns it.
Nobody files a concerned on-camera report about an attack that is failing.
The convention picked this fight deliberately. The GOP's entire two-day Dallas strategy rested on one argument: socialist candidates winning Democrat primaries are not an isolated phenomenon — they are the party.
Republicans are framing the entire midterm as a choice between common sense and crazy, and the Democratic Socialists of America wave is handing them everything they need to make it stick. Every Republican running in a competitive district this fall will repeat some version of that argument through November.
Democratic Socialists of America Swept the 2026 Primaries and Democrats Know It
A socialist wave swept Democrat primaries this spring and summer from Michigan to Colorado to New York.
Bernie Sanders spent decades as a fringe figure. Now his people are winning statewide nominations and knocking off longtime incumbents. Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayor's race in 2025 and immediately set himself up as a national kingmaker, backing socialist congressional candidates across the country.
DSA is not knocking on the door anymore. They own it.
Harper's broad brush complaint ignores who loaded it.
Third Way, a centrist Democrat group with direct ties to the Clinton and Obama operations, committed $15 million this cycle – not to defeat Republicans, but to fight Democratic Socialists in their own primaries.
Fifteen million dollars aimed at their own people.
Douglas Schoen – a veteran of Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign and Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid – and his partner Carly Cooperman put their warning in writing: "There is emerging evidence that Democrats are being harmed by perceptions that the party is drifting towards socialism."
Clinton operatives wrote that warning – not Republican opposition researchers.
A majority of swing voters and older voters oppose Democrat Socialist candidates. The resistance grows with income – more than half of voters earning over $100,000 annually oppose the trend.
Just the News confirmed that establishment Democrats connected to the Clinton and Obama administrations went on record warning that the socialist branding was cutting into the party's electoral advantages heading into November.
Every Democrat running in a swing district faces an impossible question this fall. Back the socialist wing, and moderate voters leave. Reject the socialist wing, and the volunteers who run the ground game leave. Either answer is a loss.
Schoen and Cooperman made the math explicit: Republicans do not need a DSA card in every Democrat's wallet. A handful of high-profile socialist wins in swing state primaries is enough to hang the label on the entire party. The 2026 primary calendar already delivered that handful.
There is no good answer. That is not accidental.
Harper went to Dallas to tell America that Republicans are being unfair.
Fifteen million dollars from inside the Democrat Party says otherwise.
Sources:
- Mike LaChance, "ABC News Reporter Complains That Republicans at Convention Are Describing Democrats as 'Radical and Leftist,'" The Gateway Pundit, September 10, 2026.
- "Meet the Far-Left Insurgents Waging War on the Democratic Establishment in 2026 Midterms," Fox News, July 13, 2026.
- "Trump and Vance Headline First-Ever GOP Midterm Convention in Dallas," Fox News, September 8, 2026.
- "Establishment Democrats Warn Socialist Candidates Could Cost the Party the Midterms," Just the News, July 29, 2026.
- Matt Margolis, "The Democrats Have Already Lost to the Socialists," PJ Media, August 22, 2026.