Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned the Democratic Party that it needs to find a way to work with far-leftist candidates ahead of the midterms because the GOP’s anti-communist messaging is “going to be a very effective attack.”

In a Friday episode of tech journalist Kara Swisher’s podcast “Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway,” Clinton discussed progressive Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow Senate primary win in Michigan this week over Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate.

“The real fight will be, how do we make sure that people who voted for Haley feel comfortable voting for Abdul El-Sayed, and how do we get Independents to feel comfortable,” Clinton said.

“It’s not just about Michigan, but the Republican messaging is ‘communist, socialist.’ It’s going to be a very effective attack,” she cautioned. “People on the left have to be prepared to answer that and be effective in answering that.”

An incredulous Swisher asked if Clinton truly believes that the “communist” label is an effective attack against political candidates in 2026 — and Clinton doubled down.

“All I know is that is the attack [President] Trump is leading with and I assume they’ve tested that and I assume they have reason to believe it’s effective or they wouldn’t be beating the drum on it,” she said.

“They are trying to bring back scare tactics about our candidates,” Clinton added, though she noted “it didn’t work in New York,” referring to dem socialist NYC Mayor Mamdani’s election win.

Earlier in the podcast, Swisher asked Clinton whether she thinks El-Sayed’s win should serve as a “wake-up call” for the Democratic Party.

“I think there’s no doubt that, you know, the Republican Party is the Trump cult and the Democratic Party is a bigger tent. We do have a broad cross-section of people, what they believe, what their experiences are,” the onetime presidential candidate said. “I think that’s an advantage, but we also have to win general elections.”

El-Sayed narrowly defeated Stevens, meaning he will have to win over a lot of her supporters to beat former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the November general election, Clinton argued — and Dems largely see Michigan as a must-win state to regain control of the Senate next year.

El-Sayed ran on a campaign built on far-left economic and social reforms, including “Medicare for all,” abolishing ICE, ending US aid to Israel and imposing new millionaire and billionaire taxes, which could scare off moderates.

It will “require a lot of outreach and a lot of willingness on the part of the winning candidate and his supporters to know that they need the people that they were vilifying online in-person” at the polls, Clinton said.

“I mean, the kind of things that were said about Haley [Stevens], her supporters, there were a lot of really nasty personal attacks…[and] one thing that we haven’t seen enough of is that when the progressives, the left…when they lose, they often don’t support the candidate that has been nominated,” she added.

“You know, there was a lot of reluctance to support Kamala Harris. There was a lot of reluctance to support me when I got the nomination. So it can’t be a one-way street.”