WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump showed in his State of the Union address Tuesday night that he plans to run for re-election by attacking socialism – including going after figures popular with the fired-up Democratic base like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

After Trump warned about "new calls to adopt socialism in our country," Republicans circulated photos of Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders and other stone-faced lawmakers who "refused to stand" during parts of the speech.

"It’s creeping throughout the entire party," Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News Radio Wednesday. "It will be a theme in 2020."

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez – who both call themselves "Democratic socialists" – fought back. They accused Trump of putting a scary label on positions that are publicly popular, such as guaranteed health care.

Polls show they are both right and wrong about that.

The popularity of Medicare for all, for example, soars when people hear it would guarantee health insurance as a right.

But views were more negative than positive in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll if respondents thought Medicare for all would eliminate private health insurance companies or would require most Americans to pay more in taxes.

Trump tried to make Medicare for all a liability for Democrats during the midterm elections in an opinion piece for USA TODAY that the nonpartisan FactCheck.org said made "sweeping, unsupported attacks on the `radical socialist plans of the Democrats.'"

Trump went back to that theme Tuesday.

"Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country," he said.

Republican leaders emphasized that message after the speech.

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News that a World War II veteran in his 90s who attended the speech as a guest of Trump's stood up to applaud more often "than a lot of those Democrats when (Trump) was talking about the greatness of this country and rejecting socialism."

"GOP felt like Trump had just created a socialism test, and some Dems failed it on national TV," tweeted conservative columnist Bryon York.

Praising the speech Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said it was a powerful reminder that "we can never allow the United States of America to dim our light by sliding into the failures of socialism."

Democrats like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, the nonpartisan PolitiFact noted, have not called for the government to take over business. Instead, they've called for a dramatic expansion of the social safety net, paid for through higher tax rates. That makes their proposals closer to governments in Europe than to Trump's poster child for the failures of socialism: Venezuela.

Socialism or 'compassionate capitalism?'

New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic caucus chair, called what his colleagues support "compassionate capitalism."

“The House Democratic caucus supports a well-regulated free market economy that is also anchored in a robust social safety net, including Social Security and Medicare," Jeffries told reporters Wednesday when asked if the party is divided on the issue.

Democrats polled by Gallup last year had a more positive image of socialism than capitalism, the first time Gallup found that difference in a decade of asking the question. The 57 percent of Democrats viewing socialism positively hadn't substantially risen. But the 47 percent who looked favorably on capitalism was a decline from past polls.

The survey came after Sanders' spirited challenge to Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination and Ocasio-Cortez' stunning 2018 primary win over a member of the House Democratic leadership.

Sanders is debating whether to run for president again in 2020 and Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most high-profile figures of the House Democratic caucus.

Ocasio-Cortez said after the speech that Trump is mischaracterizing socialism because Democrats' policies are so popular.

"I think what he’s seeing is that he’s losing the war on the issues," she told NBC News.

In a January poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, 71 percent approved of Medicare for all and only 27 percent disapproved when told it could “guarantee health insurance as a right for all Americans.” But if the plan would eliminate private health insurance companies, 58 percent were opposed and only 37 percent approved.

The survey showed majority support for more incremental moves to a nationalized system.

Testing another rallying cry for liberal Democrats, a recent Morning Consult/Politico survey found support for higher taxes on the wealthy. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's call for an annual tax of 2 percent on net worth over $50 million was backed by 61 percent, a stronger showing than the 45 percent plurality supporting Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a new marginal tax rate of 70 percent on income over $10 million.

Conway, the Trump adviser, said it was important for Trump to "define socialism" in his speech because the "ideological leftist drift" goes beyond just a few members of Congress.

"This president has to knock it down in early 2019," Conway told Fox News Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Show.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., had a different explanation for Trump's comments.

"It was a demagogic attempt," Hoyer said, "to rile up his base."

Contributing: Eliza Collins, Deborah Barfield Berry and Will Cummings.