Sanders’ identity as a democratic socialist has also put him at odds with Democrats in Florida, a swing state whose immigrant population is made up in large part of refugees who fled leftist dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America. Sanders’ warm words for the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday prompted Florida Democrats to distance themselves from their party’s 2020 frontrunner, warning that putting the Vermont senator atop the ticket would seal a victory for President Donald Trump in the Sunshine State.

And while vulnerable House Democrats have fretted about Sanders as their party’s nominee, such concern is somewhat less prevalent among Senate Democrats, who have expressed confidence in their colleague’s ability to defeat Trump in November.

Republican efforts to brand the Democratic Party nationwide as socialist fell short in the 2018 midterms, which swept a so-called blue wave of Democrats into control of the House for the first time in decade, a shift powered mostly by moderate candidates in traditionally red suburbs. But Emmer expressed confidence Tuesday that such attacks would stick in November with a self-identified democratic socialist as the Democrats’ nominee.

“They are looking at having to defend an extreme radical socialist left agenda that quite frankly does not represent mainstream America and doesn’t represent the people in their district. This is why they’re going to lose their majority and they’re aware of it,” Emmer told Fox News on Tuesday. “Regardless of whether it’s the socialist Bernie Sanders or if they steal it from him at a convention for instance, it’s gonna so be divided I think it just reelects Donald Trump and it elects a new Republican majority in the House.”