Democratic socialists ride wave of momentum in primaries from New York to Colorado | Democratic socialism

IIn the transformation of a Brooklyn industrial garage into an underground events venue, local leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America last month urged hundreds of mostly young people not to become complacent. Of course, New York City had a socialist representative in the U.S. Congress and recently elected a socialist mayor. But they had so much more to do.

“If we choose only Zohran, if we choose only AOC, our project will fail,” Gustavo Gordillo, co-chairman of the city’s DSA chapter, told the assembled crowd. “Our goals are much higher than a position in government. We want to transform the world.”

“To do this,” he continued, “we must turn DSA into a factory.”

In recent months, a production line of winning DSA candidates has kicked into high gear in New York and beyond. Pennsylvania Democrats have selected Chris Rabb, an unflinchingly progressive state representative, as the party’s third congressional district nominee. Janeese Lewis George is slated to be the next mayor of Washington, DC.

And in Colorado on Tuesday, democratic socialist Melat Kiros centered Denver over ousted longtime U.S. representative Diana DeGette in the state’s deep-blue first congressional district. The democratic socialists’ momentum is unlike anything the US left has seen before.

The morning after nine of 10 New York City candidates backed by DSA scored a stunning victory in the state’s Democratic primary last week, the city’s chapter wrote in an email: “For the second year in a row, we SHOCKED the political establishment and the millionaires who tried to stop our movement.”

But some veterans of the organization seemed as surprised as the organization they stunned. Ashik Siddique, DSA’s national co-chairman, told the Guardian: “We always want to organize to win, but we also understand that this is a long shot.”

Hours earlier, the NY-13 congressional race had been called for pro-Palestinian political newcomer Darializa Avila Chevalier, who defeated a former incumbent who had outscored her by millions in the most surprising upset of the night. “Going into this job, I was personally prepared for any outcome, but to have such a robust screening is incredible,” Siddique said.

The history-breaking election of Zohran Mamdani last November as the city’s first immigrant, Muslim and DSA member mayor was both a victory and a challenge for the democratic socialist movement. Was this a one-off coincidence, or an indication that something more shocking was transforming US policy?

“Just electing a charismatic mayor is not enough,” Gordillo said in a recent interview. “We must continue to fight for power and increase our numbers.”

The numbers are indeed growing, and fast. DSA’s New York chapter — the largest and most active chapter ever — counted 5,900 members due in the fall of 2024, when Mamdani supported his then-improbable campaign. Before last month’s primary, that number was up to 14,000. The first day after the results are announced, at least 900 more had attended.

According to national co-chair Siddique, the organization is growing across the country, mostly in big cities but also in more surprising places. There are currently more than 200 local DSA chapters; 20 of these have more than 1,000 members, and there are more than 100,000 members nationwide. He added that growth was significant in the south and midwest, naming Macon, Georgia; Sonoma County, California; Corpus Christi, Texas; and Kansas City, Missouri are among the fastest-growing departments.

“We have the right theory of change,” Siddiqui said. “It really resonates.”

‘The left wing of the possible’

When DSA was founded in 1982, it combined two pre-existing organizations during an unpromising political period for the left; Its co-founder and first co-chairman, author and activist Michael Harrington, described the organization’s purpose as “the left wing of the possible.”

Left historian and another DSA co-founder, Maurice Isserman, told the Guardian that the DSA’s founders’ vision combined the aspirations and values ​​of the radical left politics of the time with a pragmatic and realistic approach.

Isserman left DSA following Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. his criticism Details of the organization’s response to the attacks include a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square on October 8, sponsored by the city’s DSA chapter, with some participants attending to celebrate the violence. It was an uncertain time for the organisation.

Following an injection of young new members and organizing energy following the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns of self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders (though he is not a DSA member), DSA’s rankings have declined. Following the 2018 election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, Missouri’s Cori Bush and New York’s Jamaal Bowman had strengthened DSA’s files in Congress in 2020, but Bush and Bowman lost their seats to established candidates in 2024 in what were, at the time, the most expensive congressional campaigns in U.S. history.

Isserman believed that what he described as growing sectarianism within DSA, divisions over Israel, and intransigence towards DSA-backed elected officials who had deviated from some priorities would drag the organization into a “death spiral.”

He has since changed his assessment. “In that sense I was wrong,” he thought. “I didn’t guess Zohran.”

Isserman said Mamdani’s election was a “game changer.” NYC-DSA’s victories — both with Mamdani’s election last November and last week, when all but one of the division’s backed candidates prevailed — show that the division “has truly become the left wing of the possible.”

“He has proven once again that he is serious, he is talented, he has a great ground game, he attracts young and talented candidates and organizers,” Isserman added. “This is truly a model for the future American left.”

He pointed to Mamdani’s early gains and ability to build support for his policies as a roadmap, suggesting that governing would also be a good experience for socialists, rather than always finding themselves in opposition, where the left has historically remained.

“The thing about actually managing is that it’s very different from being an echo chamber with your 20 closest comrades and trying to please them,” Isserman said. “This will be a maturing experience for a generation of young socialists.”

Next selection tests

With the primaries in full swing, several more races will be held to test how broadly DSA’s message resonates and how its organizational prowess can hold up against budget-constrained establishment candidates.

Bush is running to regain his seat in Missouri. In Michigan, the local DSA chapter supported Donavan McKinney’s congressional candidacy. And in Wisconsin, socialist state legislator Francesca Hong is polling strongly in the gubernatorial contest.

If Hong wins the Democratic primary, the Wisconsin governorship would be the highest-level government seat contested by a DSA candidate. In a swing state, this would also be a test of how a socialist candidate can perform against a Republican.

Some DSA leaders, buoyed by victories, are increasingly vocal about wanting to support a socialist candidate in the 2028 presidential election. As many understand, this is a long shot and a decision the organization expects to deliberate at length. But supporters say recent victories are a long shot and the organization is optimistic about pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

The old guard of the Democratic party did not take this well. Various figures in the establishment reacted to this with a mixture of disdain, panic and outright hostility. “If you hate the Democratic Party, please do not run for office,” Jaime Harrison, the former chairman of the Democratic Party national committee, wrote on social media.

DSA members are determined. “What is a party if not its voters?” mamdani pushed back.

“They have to choose who they want to side with,” Siddique said, adding that the Democratic party leadership should take a cue from the socialists’ victories and support the issues those victories show are important to a growing number of voters. “These races show that people are on our side.”

“If they want to continue to cater to the tech oligarchs, the fossil fuel executives, the 1%, then there is a fundamental conflict,” he added. “We will continue to stand up for what we want, we have no intention of compromising with people we see as standing in the way of the real working class agenda.”

‘They have money, we have campaigners’

“They have the money, we have the pollsters,” political commentator and DSA member Emma Vigeland told a crowd gathered at an industrial garage in Brooklyn last month. Attendees scanned barcodes to sign up for shifts while Chelsea Manning was in the DJ booth.

Broadcaster Hasan Piker took to the stage to rally participants, as he increasingly does in an attempt to win back left-wing votes. The crowd repeatedly chanted “Tax the Rich” and “Free Palestine.”

After a tumultuous time for DSA in the early days of Israel’s war in Gaza, there was little doubt that its support for Palestinian liberation distinguished DSA candidates from some of their progressive rivals—some of whom had similar platforms on affordability, housing, and getting ICE out of New York.

Attacks on DSA candidates’ pro-Palestinian activism appeared to have the opposite effect, only gaining them broader support.

“Palestine was really front and center,” Siddique said. “It’s really become a shortcut to having moral clarity. Politicians on the left used to be able to be progressive on a lot of issues other than Palestine, but that’s not the case anymore.”

He added that directly condemning genocide and apartheid had become “a sign of credibility.” Mamdani had shown that one could do this and still win the election despite, perhaps even because of it.

Yet Mamdani’s win wouldn’t have been possible without an army of people like them knocking on more than a million doors in support of her campaign.

Gathering the crowd together, Piker urged them to seize the “urgency and opportunity” of the moment.

“Even though Zohran came out on top in New York, I expect that Zohran will look insignificant at the end of these midterms,” he said. “Because by then we will have chosen a lot of people.”