[[{“value”:”

LAWRENCE, LOWELL, LYNN – As the national co-chair of the DSA’s Puerto Rico Working Group, I often hear the question from other organization members: “Why should a socialist here care about the territorial status of Puerto Rico?” My answer: “As an American citizen, it is your Congress who holds absolute control over the colony of Puerto Rico.”

Massachusetts is not merely a sympathetic bystander to Puerto Rico’s struggle. We are the fifth-largest hub of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States. Our Commonwealth is home to over 330,000 Boricuas, and within the jurisdiction of Boston DSA, we hold an immense, concentrated organizing power. Look at Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn—cities where Puerto Rican flags hang from triple-deckers, where music echoes through the parks, and where the wounds of economic and social neglect are felt just as acutely as they are in San Juan.

These are not just “Latino communities” to be courted during election cycles; they are the frontline outposts of the Puerto Rican nation within the U.S. imperial core. These communities are the result of a colonial system that has displaced millions of Puerto Ricans. For Boston DSA, organizing for independence isn’t an abstract international solidarity gesture—it is local work, with local communities.

The political winds in Puerto Rico are shifting faster than the United States establishment cares to admit. For decades, U.S. policymakers and the archipelago’s colonial elite have tried to hide the imperialist nature of the relationship between the US and Puerto Rico. That narrative is dead. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria—where 4,645 Puerto Ricans were left to die by their colonial rulers, along with the imposition of a dictatorial financial control board that gutted public education and healthcare—the people of Puerto Rico have radicalized. They have seen the colonial model fail. They watched the colonialist local parties offer loyalty to Washington and receive only austerity in return. Today, a growing number of Boricuas are rejecting both statehood and the commonwealth, embracing independence out of a clear-eyed need for sovereignty and human rights. We see a clear generational shift with independence is the favored status amongst Puerto Ricans born after the Cold War.

This surge aligns perfectly with the organized leftist movements on the island, which have long championed independence as the only path toward a just, sustainable, and self-determined future. It is the generations that survived the violent repression of the independence movement during the Cold War that have passed the torch to a new and awakened youth on the path to freedom. From the organized political parties advocating for national liberation to the labor unions fighting austerity, the left in Puerto Rico understands that begging for rights within an imperial system is no longer an option. True prosperity can only be found in the collective freedom that an independent Republic of Puerto Rico would bring.

What is our duty as socialists residing in the metropolis? It is to understand the responsibility we have as the owners of the colony currently in a struggle for liberation spanning borders, right into our communities in Massachusetts. We must understand that the onus is on us. We must be consistent in our convictions as anti-imperialists and free the colonized people we collectively hold as a nation. Puerto Rico is not a distant issue we can ignore, but a reflection of who we are as an empire.

If we can say “Free Palestine,” we should be able to look inward and say “Vive Puerto Rico Libre.”

Colonialism is not an accident of history; it is the original sin of capitalism. As socialists, we are duty-bound to support the independence of oppressed nations. To do otherwise is to reveal ourselves as mere reformers of the empire, rather than its dismantlers.

This duty manifests in our daily organizing. For Boston DSA, it means deploying our resources to support the diaspora communities in Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn—not as saviors, but as comrades. That entails broader support for neighborhood organizing in these communities. It means educating our broader membership on how the colonialism of Puerto Rico materially affects its inhabitants and how we can stand in solidarity with a growing national liberation movement, while amplifying the voices of the island’s citizens who fight everyday to survive the cruelties of an imperialist system. It means unequivocally calling for the full cancellation of debt that was created by a system that our country imposed. It means calling for a Puerto Rico that is free, sovereign and independent.

This is not a matter of political differences—anti-colonialism is non-negotiable for socialists and the people of Puerto Rico deserve our solidarity on their path towards freedom. Everyone, Puerto Rican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something. 

Let Boston DSA, and any other DSA chapter that takes up the call, prove that solidarity is a strategy and not a buzzword. The colony is here and the struggle is now. The only acceptable outcome is a free and independent Puerto Rico.

Dom S is a member of Boston DSA and a national co-chair of the Puerto Rico Working Group of the DSA International Committee.

The post OPINION: In Mass, Organizing for Puerto Rican Independence is Local Work appeared first on Working Mass.

“}]] 

By: Dom S

LAWRENCE, LOWELL, LYNN – As the national co-chair of the DSA’s Puerto Rico Working Group, I often hear the question from other organization members: “Why should a socialist here care about the territorial status of Puerto Rico?” My answer: “As an American citizen, it is your Congress who holds absolute control over the colony of Puerto Rico.”

Massachusetts is not merely a sympathetic bystander to Puerto Rico’s struggle. We are the fifth-largest hub of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States. Our Commonwealth is home to over 330,000 Boricuas, and within the jurisdiction of Boston DSA, we hold an immense, concentrated organizing power. Look at Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn—cities where Puerto Rican flags hang from triple-deckers, where music echoes through the parks, and where the wounds of economic and social neglect are felt just as acutely as they are in San Juan.

These are not just “Latino communities” to be courted during election cycles; they are the frontline outposts of the Puerto Rican nation within the U.S. imperial core. These communities are the result of a colonial system that has displaced millions of Puerto Ricans. For Boston DSA, organizing for independence isn’t an abstract international solidarity gesture—it is local work, with local communities.

The political winds in Puerto Rico are shifting faster than the United States establishment cares to admit. For decades, U.S. policymakers and the archipelago’s colonial elite have tried to hide the imperialist nature of the relationship between the US and Puerto Rico. That narrative is dead. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria—where 4,645 Puerto Ricans were left to die by their colonial rulers, along with the imposition of a dictatorial financial control board that gutted public education and healthcare—the people of Puerto Rico have radicalized. They have seen the colonial model fail. They watched the colonialist local parties offer loyalty to Washington and receive only austerity in return. Today, a growing number of Boricuas are rejecting both statehood and the commonwealth, embracing independence out of a clear-eyed need for sovereignty and human rights. We see a clear generational shift with independence is the favored status amongst Puerto Ricans born after the Cold War.

This surge aligns perfectly with the organized leftist movements on the island, which have long championed independence as the only path toward a just, sustainable, and self-determined future. It is the generations that survived the violent repression of the independence movement during the Cold War that have passed the torch to a new and awakened youth on the path to freedom. From the organized political parties advocating for national liberation to the labor unions fighting austerity, the left in Puerto Rico understands that begging for rights within an imperial system is no longer an option. True prosperity can only be found in the collective freedom that an independent Republic of Puerto Rico would bring.

What is our duty as socialists residing in the metropolis? It is to understand the responsibility we have as the owners of the colony currently in a struggle for liberation spanning borders, right into our communities in Massachusetts. We must understand that the onus is on us. We must be consistent in our convictions as anti-imperialists and free the colonized people we collectively hold as a nation. Puerto Rico is not a distant issue we can ignore, but a reflection of who we are as an empire.

If we can say “Free Palestine,” we should be able to look inward and say “Vive Puerto Rico Libre.”

Colonialism is not an accident of history; it is the original sin of capitalism. As socialists, we are duty-bound to support the independence of oppressed nations. To do otherwise is to reveal ourselves as mere reformers of the empire, rather than its dismantlers.

This duty manifests in our daily organizing. For Boston DSA, it means deploying our resources to support the diaspora communities in Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn—not as saviors, but as comrades. That entails broader support for neighborhood organizing in these communities. It means educating our broader membership on how the colonialism of Puerto Rico materially affects its inhabitants and how we can stand in solidarity with a growing national liberation movement, while amplifying the voices of the island’s citizens who fight everyday to survive the cruelties of an imperialist system. It means unequivocally calling for the full cancellation of debt that was created by a system that our country imposed. It means calling for a Puerto Rico that is free, sovereign and independent.

This is not a matter of political differences—anti-colonialism is non-negotiable for socialists and the people of Puerto Rico deserve our solidarity on their path towards freedom. Everyone, Puerto Rican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something. 

Let Boston DSA, and any other DSA chapter that takes up the call, prove that solidarity is a strategy and not a buzzword. The colony is here and the struggle is now. The only acceptable outcome is a free and independent Puerto Rico.

Dom S is a member of Boston DSA and a national co-chair of the Puerto Rico Working Group of the DSA International Committee.

The post OPINION: Fighting for Puerto Rican Independence is Local Work, Especially in Massachusetts appeared first on Working Mass.

Date: Saturday, August 15 from 10 AM until 2 PM

Location: Kellogg Park• 33 Kellog st, Ventura, CA 93001 US

The Mutual Aid Working Group of DSA Ventura County is engaged in base-building and community organizing by exchanging goods and services with those who want to see a world beyond capitalist profiteering.

A free meal is served to attendees. Come get a free meal, or even bring your favorite potluck item or beverages, or non-perishable food to donate.

If you would like to help our mutual aid efforts but are not able to attend, DONATE HERE:

Monthly Working Session Meeting

Tuesday, August 25 at 6 PM PDT

The Political Education Working Group is the place to bring your ideas for workshops, educational material, agitprop, and more. Our goal is to bring socialist ideas, DSA messaging and campaigns, and class consciousness to the people of Ventura County. All levels of organizing experience welcome.

Join DSA Ventura County’s Labor Working Group on zoom to discuss recent labor struggles in our communities, from Starbucks Workers United’s indefinite strike, to the new contract our County employees won by threatening to strike, to the movement for an arms embargo by Labor for Palestine, and the calls for a general strike by May Day 2028. Please, bring other ideas, campaigns, and your own workplace experiences. An agenda will be posted on slack soon. You will receive the zoom link shortly after completing RSVP.

Now with three VC Locations!

Newbury Park

Date: Saturday, August 22 from 9:30 AM until 11 AM

Location: Ragamuffin Coffee Roasters • 111 N Reino Rd, Newbury Park

Simi Valley

Date: Tuesday, August 25 from 6:30PM until 8PM

Location: 85C Bakery Cafe• 3013 Cochran st, Suite A, Simi Valley, CA

Oxnard

Date: Sunday, September 13 from 9:30 AM until 11 AM

Location: Ragamuffin Coffee Roasters • 550 Collection Blvd Suite 130, Oxnard, CA 93036, USA

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Come join like-minded comrades for a cup of your favorite morning beverage. These gatherings offer a relaxed space to meet members and find out how to get involved, decompress, talk about the issues we face, and stay connected as we close out the year.

No RSVPs needed!

Many hands make light work.

Please reference our Slack’s events channel, or general, for the Agenda.

Zoom Meeting link will appear upon RSVP.

By Alissa B., Anthony D., Elijah N., James M., and Jill R.

One year into an experimental electoral project to organize alongside our Socialists in Office, DSA is setting down real roots in western Wayne County.

Below is an approximate transcript of comments made by members at the June 2026 General Meeting detailing progress on Metro Detroit DSA’s organizing in western Wayne County.

Anthony D., engineer, Royal Oak, 2025–2026 SOWW chair:

At our 2025 Convention, members passed an amendment to the Socialists in Office (SIO) Committee consensus resolution, authored by Anthony D. and Frances R., that created a unique and experimental ‘Geographic Working Group’. It was designed as a space for rank-and-file DSA members living in State Representative Dylan Wegela’s and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s overlapping districts, to regularly meet with and organize alongside them. Our SIOs are surrounded daily by politicians ranging from corporate Democrats to fascist Republicans who serve the same ruling class, so we imagined this group as the socialist antidote and support system. The idea was to experiment with a new concept of how DSA and our SIOs should use elected office and carve a path towards our political independence. The amendment included the clause below.

The Geographic Working Group will issue a report at both the six-month (December 2025) and twelve-month (June 2026) mark to:

• provide an update on progress towards our goals and explain any roadblocks to accomplishing them
• offer an analysis and critique to consider whether it should be replicated by future similar bodies or other SIO Committees around the country
• normalize open reporting on the progress of this and other unique experiments in the chapter — all of which can be expected to have misses and fails, which are acceptable so long as the lessons learned are defined and shared with membership similar to past electoral campaigns

We conducted the first report-back at our December 2025 GM six months ago and wrote an article for the Detroit Socialist. We are doing so again today at the one-year mark. As of June 1, I am now the former chair of the group after having led it for a year, and have since handed off duties to our newly elected co-chairs, Jill and Kathy.

Jill R., stay-at-home mom, Westland, 2026–2027 SOWW co-chair:

As of June 1st, I’m one of the new co-chairs of Socialists Organizing Western Wayne (SOWW). I had first heard of DSA from Dylan when he knocked on my door during a canvass for his election a few years ago. Though it sounded interesting, I told him I didn’t want to drive out to Detroit for events. That didn’t stop him from trying to get me to join every time I saw him after that initial meeting. Then, last summer, I went to an event that Dylan and Mike McDermott had hosted just three minutes from my house. Dylan once again brought up DSA, where I once again told him I didn’t want to drive to Detroit.

That’s when he told me that a new group was forming and would be meeting in Westland. I told him to let me know the details as that was definitely something I would be willing to attend. I finally attended my first SOWW meeting at the end of October 2025 and joined DSA the following week. I’m now willing to drive to Detroit for General Meetings and other DSA events, but if it wasn’t for SOWW existing in the first place, I wouldn’t be here.

One of the projects I’ve worked on was having SOWW co-host the March No Kings event with UAW Local 900 in Wayne. I know a lot of us have mixed feelings about the No Kings events and the mobilization versus organization aspect to them, but attending the October No Kings gave me the little bit of hope I was missing that allowed my ADHD brain to finally contact Dylan for information about SOWW, which led me to DSA. And I wanted to use the March No Kings event as a chance to find some folks who may have been needing a little bit of hope, too.

After seeing the Wayne event pop up on the No Kings map and realizing that hosting one in Westland wasn’t going to be an option, I contacted Tonya, the Wayne host, to see if we could support in any way. Tonya is a UAW retiree who had talked her leadership into letting her have the No Kings event at their local union hall. She was able to convince leadership to let us co-host because so many DSA folks had joined the Local 900 members on the picket line during the 2023 UAW auto workers strike. Tonya and her leadership remembered the strong strike support and solidarity that DSA provided during those weeks.

During the event, we had a table where we talked to folks about DSA and SOWW and we had members, including newbies, crowd-canvassing to get signatures for the Mop Up Michigan petition. We provided medics and wrote up a safety plan, and Mike and Dylan both gave speeches to the 100+ people that attended. It was one of the smaller No Kings events due to it being a first-time location, but overall it went well and we’re looking forward to working with Tonya and Local 900 again. Tonya and I are still in contact and let each other know about any potential chances to organize together, and her husband Paul, who is a State Field Director at Voters Not Politicians, has attended SOWW meetings and shown interest in joining DSA.

Alissa B., retiree union staffer, Romulus, SOWW member:

I joined DSA in late July 2025 as a relatively new resident in Michigan. I got a call from Anthony not long after joining and he told me about this experimental Geographic Working Group that we now call SOWW, and invited me to a meeting. I was excited about the chance to connect with my community and like-minded people in the area. Ever since, I’ve been a regular attendee and have been able to observe the growth of this group.

SOWW meetings are intentionally structured to foster membership growth and leadership development. This is a space for new folks who don’t know much about DSA but are socialist-curious. It’s easy for non-members to show up to something local and feel comfortable getting to know DSA before joining. They get a chance to “dip their toes in,” and we build political reading and discussion on current issues and socialist theory into every agenda.

These productive discussions help expose us to a variety of perspectives. We can gradually ease people into organizing and socialism in a way that isn’t overwhelming, so people can learn about democratic processes and how to be active participants in organizing out in the world. In organizing alongside our SIO’s, you can see the direct benefits of organizing. Another aspect of the membership growth and leadership development model is task rotation. Each meeting, we rotate the standard tasks: facilitators, notetakers, food coordinators, space reservers, political reading and discussion developers, etc., so everyone has an opportunity to try different roles.

Lastly is the growth in numbers. In less than a year, we’ve doubled our membership from 30 members in December 2025 with an average of 12–13 meeting attendees to now having 60 members and 20–25 meeting attendees. Seventy different people have attended at least one SOWW meeting, and nine have joined DSA through their participation in SOWW.

Number of meeting attendees, SOWW members that have joined DSA, and first time attendees since the group’s inception a year ago.

James M., engineer, Westland, Dylan Wegela re-election campaign co-chair:

I joined DSA nearly a year ago after I was spotted at a No Kings Rally by my coworker and DSA member, Dan W. After attending a couple of General Meetings, I was struggling to find a group to get involved with because of the long distances to attend DSA meetings and I did not find Zoom meetings appealing. That’s when I got a call from Anthony about this Geographic Working Group to organize alongside our local SIOs. Fast-forward to today, and I am now one of the co-chairs for Dylan’s re-election campaign.

Dylan’s campaign isn’t your typical campaign, as he represents a fairly blue district and is running unopposed in the primary on the Democratic Party ballot line. Dylan having no opponent is surprising given how he has fought the mainstream Democratic Party and corporate interests by voting ‘No’ on every corporate handout brought to a vote and is continuing the fight against corporate handouts and AI data centers in Michigan.

Because Dylan is running unopposed, we have a unique opportunity to get creative with our campaign. Not just using it to get people to vote for Dylan, but to get Dylan’s constituents to work alongside him on tackling many of the issues plaguing our district, such as AI data centers, ICE occupation and detention facilities, tenants’ rights, and Flock.

So far, we have held some traditional events like a campaign launch party with a turnout of over 200 people. We’ve also held campaign fundraisers and canvasses which we have used to engage with the community about the myriad of issues in our district.

At the moment, we are planning to host some social events to bring the community out so that Dylan and SOWW can engage with them, with the goal to recruit more people into SOWW and DSA. We are also working on holding joint canvasses with Rashida’s team and other DSA-endorsed candidates.

Elijah, engineer, Livonia, SOWW Flock campaign chair

I joined DSA three months ago through my brother and through SOWW. SOWW has started a subcommittee to address Flock and AI-surveillance more broadly. I have been given the privilege of leading this group and bottom-lining our tasks. Our goal is to replicate the success of our sibling group in Ferndale. They were successfully able to push their city to cancel their Flock contract, proving that it is possible in southeast Michigan.

In Westland, we are taking two parallel approaches. The first is to build broad public support. Our group has canvassed homes and created literature to spread. The second is to build connections with the city council and ensure we can make a persuasive case against the technology. To achieve both aims, we informed, motivated, and organized many new members who had been attending SOWW meetings.

We set up weekly meetings to support each other. With the assistance of Ferndale and other knowledgeable members, we educated otherwise uninformed members about Flock and how best to go about the above goals. We have been successful in leveraging everyone’s unique skills and experience. Members who have never attended a city council meeting before are now showing up and speaking their minds. Other members are helping with creating literature, media, and petitions. Ensuring that we maintain pressure and consistent communication with Westland City Council has been possible thanks to the dedication of all members.

With all the above efforts, we are confident in our chances. We look forward to reporting back in July when the contract is canceled [Westland City Council announced on July 9 that they would not be renewing the contract]. Further, we are eager to expand our efforts so that ALL people in southeast Michigan have their privacy rights protected.

I would like to take a moment to talk about SOWW itself. SOWW presents a unique opportunity for this kind of work. First, local residents have the greatest impact on electeds in local communities, and second, SOWW is what gave me the opportunity to be a contributing, active socialist. I am grateful to this chapter for backing this initiative and bringing DSA closer to my home. Further, the opportunity to learn how to be a leader and how to organize from experienced members, such as Anthony, is also a privilege I am grateful for.

The Next Six Months

We plan to continue our recruitment of western Wayne County residents into SOWW and develop them into socialist organizers, through a cycle in which each new cohort is taught by the last. We will report back to membership again in six months at the December 2026 General Meeting. Through both our verbal and written debriefs we hope to continue normalizing open reporting on the successes and failures of our organizing work so we can all learn from it together.

Socialists are Organizing in Western Wayne County was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the last few months, it has been extremely exciting and gratifying to see the way members of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America turned out to try to get our comrade Byron Sigcho-Lopez on the ballot to run for Congress. Whether motivated by anger at the comically underhanded attempts by Chuy and Patty Garcia to deny voters a choice in who represents them in Congress, a respect and admiration for Byron’s willingness to fight for the working class of the city, or both, our members ran a field campaign that gathered almost 13,000 signatures (65% of all signatures collected by the campaign) as part of the effort to get Byron on the ballot. 

I am not writing this to pretend that those efforts did not ultimately fall short, nor do I think it is helpful to try to pretend that we don’t all feel a little sad, frustrated, or demotivated about the way things ended. But we are socialists. Workplace organizing doesn’t stop when you run into a wall. Our brothers, sisters, and siblings of United Auto Workers Local 42 working for Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee lost two National Labor Relations Board elections before winning their union in 2024, and Lula da Silva ran for president in Brazil three times before finally breaking through in 2002. So we know we are in good company. 

With that being said, we should take a second and look at what we did do. 

Accomplishments

-We turned out 167 of our members and 203 people in total to our canvasses. 

-We had 56 members turn out to three or more canvases.

-We added 12 new people who are trained to be canvass leads. 

-We made connections on the southwest side with organizations like the Pilsen Defense Alliance and MORENA Chicago.

Comrades who had never worked on an election campaign were able to talk to thousands and thousands of working-class Chicagoans about socialism, abolishing ICE, Medicare for All, and a more just, anti-imperialist foreign policy.

Members of our South Side branch who had not been active in the chapter started leading canvasses, coming to meetings, and integrating themselves more into the chapter. 

Our West Cook branch ran a whole field operation of their own, building capacity to run campaigns in the west suburbs themselves. 

The Democracy Working Group, the Environmental Justice Working Group, the Membership Engagement Committee, and the Executive Committee all turned out members to canvasses they co-sponsored. Comrades in the Chicago Teachers Union organized members in their workplaces to turnout to canvas for Byron. 

What I was most excited about was the way we showed up across geographical lines. Every branch sponsored multiple canvasses. We organized car pools to assist comrades in getting down to neighborhoods from West Lawn to Pilsen. 

The branch that had the most members turn out for Byron was the farthest away: the North Side Red Line branch. Their efforts in making sure that comrades were linked to people that could give them rides helped turn out members, and serves as a model we should try to replicate as much as possible going forward.

In this campaign, we were able to answer the question of whether or not our membership is willing to travel to electorally organize with a resounding yes. 

With that being said, Byron did not get on the ballot. The Democratic Party, the Chuy Garcia machine, and Illinois election laws (designed by the very people that benefit from them) conspired to use a rigged system to keep Byron from being able to run to keep their self-appointed heirs from having to face a real challenge. This is an important thing to remember; the people who benefit from the status quo, the people who serve the interests of capital, are not going to give up their advantages without a fight. They will fight dirty, and they will be ruthless in the protection of their interests and their offices. 

But we should not despair! Losses are not truly losses if we identify lessons to be learned from them and incorporate those lessons into actions we take in the future. 

Lessons Learned

Structural Barriers for Independent Ballot Line

The first of those lessons, in my opinion, is that in Illinois, with the way current laws are set up, barring extreme circumstances (like what happened in the 4th congressional district), we should focus on contesting the Democratic primary.  It has been said over and over in Byron’s campaign that Patty Garcia only needed to get 900 signatures to be on the ballot, whereas Byron needed to get roughly 10,800. In addition, there is a maximum number of signatures one can gather. Bryon was only allowed to submit 18,700 signatures, which negates a major defense against signature challenges.  A candidate trying to run as an independent or with a not-currently-established third party cannot even begin circulating petitions until after the primary is held, and must wait until the end of May to turn them in.

The Democratic party is going to be lying in wait for them there, as we have seen. They will unleash an army of lawyers and political operatives to comb through signatures, objecting to anything they find whether in good faith or not. If a candidate survives that, they will start their campaign on the back foot, with even less time to organize the kind of field campaign necessary to win.

We spent so much time simply trying to get the signatures necessary to get on the ballot that we were not able to do the kinds of things we would have been able to do if we had our candidate already on the ballot. We were not able to construct a list of likely Byron voters, or start the process of doing the persuasive canvassing that is needed to build on that list. Having to start that process in June against a candidate who has been able to do those things since January was always going to be a very difficult challenge. 

This state of affairs is not only frustrating, but also anti-democratic. The system is rigged against candidates trying to run outside of the two-party system. But we are socialists. Many of us are Marxists. We do not view the world through an idealistic lens, but a materialist one. These are the laws as they currently exist, and we should fight to change them. At the same time, we must both acknowledge that they are a barrier, and that comrades across the country running in partisan races have been able to elect avowed socialists to both federal and state offices by snatching the Democratic Party’s ballot line away from them, taking these struggles out of the hands of party lawyers and paid hacks and placing them in the hands of the electorate.

Of course, these issues will come up even if we run on a Democratic ballot line. Again, the capitalist class and their officeholders will not hesitate to utilize anything they can to put roadblocks in our way.  But if we look at the numbers needed to both get on the ballot andd win a primary, the struggle becomes easier. 

A candidate would have only needed to get around 700 signatures to get on the ballot to run in the Democratic primary in 2026. This is in contrast to needing over 10,000 to run as a third-party or independent candidate. The smaller number allows for a better chance of being able to survive any potential challenges, if only by being able to double, triple, or quadruple the number of signatures needed, a strategy denied to independent candidacies by a signature cap. In addition to that, the win number becomes much smaller.  

In the last competitive Democratic primary in the 4th Congressional District, Chuy Garcia defeated local goblin Ray Lopez, winning 30,443 votes to RayLo’s 13,286. What I saw floated around for Byron’s win number (what it would take to win the race), what was in the packet to go off to National for a potential endorsement, was roughly 70,000 votes. 

In almost any case yet seen, the winner of a Democratic primary goes on to win the general election in Chicago. Illinois has laws to prevent losers of primaries from running in general elections. From a purely strategic perspective, barring blatant corruption like we have seen this year, it makes far more sense to contest partisan races on the Democratic ballot line. 

From an ideological standpoint, I do not think that Darializa Avila Chevalier or Chris Rabb are going to fight for socialism or working people any less because they entered Congress through a Democratic Party ballot line. American laws do not allow for the type of disciplining of politicians that many comrades would like. If every DSA socialist in office was elected on the Socialist Party line, we could not recall them. We could expel them from the party, but they could contest our ballot line in the next election. 

Simply put, if we choose to push forward with a complete breach with an elected official, no matter what vehicle they were elected through, we still have to raise up a challenger and defeat them on Election Day.

In effect, the Democratic Party gets to choose which independents make it on the ballot; they allow rightists, centrists, and weak leftist challengers, but can effectively block socialist and progressive candidates like Byron and Mayra who have a real shot. Given these handicaps, without election reform, I can’t imagine the race where it would be worth running Chicago DSA-endorsed candidates as independents when the Democratic Party ballot line is contestable. The challenges are vast and the benefits relatively small. 

With that being said, there are certainly things we could have done to make it easy for ourselves. To begin with, we could have been curing (the process of checking signatures to make sure they are registered voters at the address they listed) petition sheets as they were gathered. 

While this was somewhat out of our hands as a chapter, if we had been curing as we went from the beginning, I believe we would have been able to identify the unregistered voters or misregistered voters we had on our petitions as we were getting them. We would have had a running count and known exactly where we were. I would suggest, going forward, that in any campaign we run, we should have a dedicated group of people going over signatures in between canvasses. 

Looking through the amount of signatures, I believe that we could have done better in really highlighting to our canvassers the need to make sure that people signing the petition were registered voters in the district. I think part of this was caused by not having as many Spanish-speaking canvassers as we needed, and part of this was caused by a desire to get as many signatures as we could. We probably canvassed in Pilsen for longer than we needed to, and moving to the west of the district where there were more English speakers would have helped with this issue.

There was a feeling that ‘when in doubt, have them sign’ that probably should have been tempered with a caution about making sure our signatures were registered voters in the district. Having more trainings independent of the canvasses would have been very helpful in drilling home that we needed to make sure that the voter was registered at the given address.

I don’t think going door-to-door to get signatures would have solved the problem as much as it would have created a different one. Simply put, when we went door-to-door, we were just not getting enough signatures for us to have been able to meet our target. In many instances, it was very common for a team of two to come back from a shift with fewer than ten signatures. Where records exist, the average number of signatures gathered from a door-to-door canvass team was six. It’s true that really training people on talking to everyone they came into contact with in a neighborhood would have certainly added to that number, but I don’t think it would have been enough to really put a dent in that difference. 

There is a formula one can use to figure out how many voter attempts needed to be made to reach the goal you are seeking. For our purposes, we will say the goal is 11,000 signatures.

The formula is 11,000, divided by the percentage of people who answer the door, divided by the percentage of people you talk to who will sign the petition.

So we would say 11,000, divided by an 18% contact rate, divided by a 75% success rate would mean to get our goal we would have needed to knock 97,777 doors. To place that number in perspective, during the entirety of Chris Rabb’s campaign for Congress in Philadelphia, they made 140,000 voter attempts.

That is not to say we used VAN (the voter management software used to do door-to-door canvassing) effectively. It would have been a great tool to check signatures against voter registration tools, as was seen when signatures were challenged.

Campaign Operations

In addition, there are things we can improve upon that are independent of the specifics of the campaign. We did not do the best job of collecting data. Often, canvassers went out and there was no data collected beyond who showed up and how many signatures were collected. We did not always remember to have people sign in. While this did not prevent us from accomplishing what we set out to do, it does mean that our analysis of what we did is less than perfect.

Our communications during the course of the petitioning was uneven. In my opinion, in future campaigns, it will be essential to have regular meetings with the Communications Committee to discuss what we want to say and how we want to say it, and have a schedule of regular communications about the campaigns we are doing and the issues we want to highlight as we go forward. Our comms should be able to inform the wider public about what we are fighting for, and should make electoral organizing seem fun. 

Member Engagement and Cohesion

This brings me to the last item I think we can improve on going forward. We really struggled to add any sense of social cohesion. Ideally, participating in the struggle binds comrades together. We are more likely to spend three or four hours on a weekend canvassing if we are doing it with people that we feel we have a bond with. Some of that bonding is forged in the work, but many of our sister chapters that have been successful in this type of organizing have regular social debriefs after canvasses and other events where comrades can not only talk about the work, but also get to know each other better. 

It’s certainly true that some of the issues we had with pulling those off had to do with the nature of the campaign. Comrades who were coming from the Northside probably were less inclined to want to stick around facing a 45 minute to an hour commute to get home from the canvass launch. In city council elections that will no doubt be more dispersed across the city, we will probably find comrades more willing to hang out with others afterwards. With that said, however, we will need to work on making these kinds of things more accessible and ‘built-in’ to future campaigns, as I think they will help quite a bit with getting comrades to come back to more canvasses and events.

Looking Ahead

Any campaign we do as a chapter is going to have more than one vector of determining whether or not it was a success. We failed to get Byron on the ballot, but we actively campaigned in parts of the city we did not have much of a presence in, we rebuilt a cadre of the membership excited and willing to work in electoral organizing, and we identified a core of people that are willing to step into leadership roles in future campaigns we will work on.

We should be proud of what we accomplished this spring. We should be excited about what lies ahead for us as a chapter! Chicago DSA has a cadre of veteran organizers with a wealth of knowledge, we have newer members who are excited to talk to people about socialism and are learning how to become more effective organizers, and we have a plan for 2027, informed by the lessons we have learned over the last eight years. 

As we have seen across the country, nothing energizes people about DSA like electoral victories. If we continue to work, execute our plans, and learn from the inevitable mistakes we will make along the way, there will come a time where the next spike in DSA membership will come from Chicago. 

The post Learning From the Byron Campaign for Congress appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

by Jeremiah M

It’s been awfully hot so I try to have something cold to drink to offer my mail carrier. He’s never been interested but I feel compelled to offer. It’s not a problem for me to do so since I work at home and he’s one of the people I see everyday. Like a coworker almost. He comes to my door every day but Sunday, every day of the year, except holidays.

It’s kind of amazing, thinking about it, but every day the Federal Government sends one of its agents to every house in the country. Lest you forget, you’re part of this giant beast – a uniformed agent of the state appears unbidden at your house. It would be pretty impressive, actually, if not for what the letter carrier brings me.

The national government, every day, can reach out and deliver an important personal message to every American. And every day I’m told that values are king, that I owe money to strangers, that other strangers want my money and that I may have to be a juror. If we look at the mechanism of delivery, the whole post office, it’s a fantastical service that performs a daily miracle. This miracle’s entire purpose is to extract money from people.

Every day we are buried in coupons and bills and limited offers to participate in usury. Turning the miracle from gold to lead in the anti-alchemy of the profit motive. Where a miraculous act should edify and uplift, this one invalidates the self, turns a citizen into an occupant and a neighbor into a mark. Commerce serves to expand the distance between people and it’s always trying to make that distance that much greater; any division is a beachhead where commerce can wedge itself, a place where it can start extracting value from a subject populace.

I can’t help but imagine a post office that served the citizenry rather than their bosses. A service that dispersed information and coordinated connections rather than serving to isolate subjects seems like something that a government based on serving its citizens would do. When we examine the practical execution of the post office’s miracle we see that it serves the government’s true citizens, its only constituents, which are commercial concerns that prey on citizens. We’re reminded once again that we’re not regarded as citizens but as ‘civilians’ – irrelevant inessential objects that must be managed in service of the ruling class. A daily miracle that could reinforce connections and which could improve all of our lives is bent toward a ruthless purpose. The infrastructure of the nation has been placed into the hands of people who can’t help but misuse it.

The post Who Does the Post Office Serve? appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.