In 1847, the Choctaw Nation donated $170 (almost $7,000 in today’s money) to a small coastal town in Ireland called Midleton. Ireland had been facing a famine and a British economic blockade for two years. Despite facing their own recent genocide that killed over 2,000 Choctaw, the nation donated what money they could to the people of Ireland.

Over a century later, the people of Midleton realized the aid had come from the Choctaw and recognized their shared histories of forced famine and ethnic cleansing. In 1995, former Irish president Mary Robinson visited the Choctaw Nation (now in Oklahoma), reestablishing ties between the two nations. Two decades later, an Irish artist named Alex Pentek created the stainless steel structure “Kindred Spirits”, which is located in Midleton’s Bailick Park in commemoration of the Choctaw’s aid. Just last year, the Choctaw commissioned their own sculpture, titled “Eternal Heart,” by Sam Stitt, an enrolled Choctaw artist.

These two indigenous peoples and their shared history reminded me of the recent Global Sumud (meaning “resilience” in Arabic) flotilla and the nearly 500 participants from 44 countries who sailed across the Mediterranean to break the illegal Israeli blockade on Gaza. Twenty-two participants from the United States sailed with the flotilla. The flotilla was established in July of this year to denounce the genocide in Gaza and call on the international community to help Palestinians in desperate need of food, medicine, and other basic supplies.

The flotilla, however, did not reach Gaza. It was illegally intercepted by the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF). While one of the boats, the Mikeno, did make it past the Gaza blockade, it too was boarded nine miles off the coast of Gaza. The participants were arrested, taken to the port of Ashdod, paraded around by far-right settler and Jewish Power party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir for Israeli social media, and shipped off to the Ktzi’ot Prison, located in the occupied Negev desert. For almost a week, the families of the American participants did not know where they were, how long they would be held, or their condition. The U.S. consulate did little to provide aid, and participants were prevented from speaking to legal counsel. 

On October 7th, 2025, Nelson Mandela’s grandson and Sumud participant Mandla Mandela posted a video about his release from Ktzi’ot. American activist David R.K. Adler could be seen in the background of the video. A few days before, X, the mother of one of the participants, received word from the Japanese consulate in Jordan that the Americans were deported from Israel to Jordan and allowed to return home. 

On October 8, five of the American participants made it back to the U.S. and flew back to the O’Hare International Airport. Al Hub, a Palestinian-led youth forum based in Bridgeview, or “Little Palestine” in Chicago, formed a welcome committee for those returning. The action was originally organized for Illinoisan and former Marine Jessica Clotfelter. I was one of the people who turned out in support of the returning Sumud participants. Taking the CTA Red and Blue lines, I made my way to the international terminal (Terminal 5) to join the welcome committee for Jessica Clotfelter, Tommy Marcus (a.k.a. Quentin Quarantino on Instagram), Stephen Wahab, Logan Hollarsmith, and Paul Reid. Jessica’s family, her parents, brother, and cousin, and Stephen’s brother anxiously waited for their return.

The Sumud quintet came from across America. Stephen and Paul are from Oregon, Tommy from California, Logan from Arizona, and Jessica from Illinois. Not all of them were on the same ship during the flotilla. Stephen, a Palestinian-American, was aboard the Alma with activists Greta Thunberg, Thiago de Avila, and Mandla Mandela. Paul was sailing on the Inna with a mostly Spanish and French crew. The Ohwayla hosted Logan (who served as one of its captains), Jessica, and Tommy, as well as fellow American activists David R.K. Adler and Greg Stoker. 

It was around half an half-hour before we saw the five heroes emerge from Exit A in Terminal 5. The Sumud quintet was not expecting this small but mighty welcome home. Paul clutched his heart as he walked towards our group, clearly not expecting such hospitality after nearly a week in an Israeli internment camp.

Jessica and Stephen’s reunions with their families were some of the most heartfelt moments; you could feel the emotion between the families as they were finally reunited with their daughter, sister, brother, or cousin. Al Hub bought bouquets for Jessica’s mother to hand to her and individual flowers for the rest of the quintet. It was touching to witness families reuniting after the wrenching uncertainty of the past week. Tommy, Paul, and Logan did not expect a grand reception just for them.

Once greetings were done and calm settled over the group, some of the gathered community members, including myself and independent journalist Jackie B., asked the five activists questions about their journey to Gaza, their treatment under Israeli captivity, and their eventual release into Jordan.

Tommy Marcus took the lead in answering the first set of questions, as the rest of the group were jet-lagged and still processing the experience. “Yes, we are back in the United States, even after our own government and consulate failed us,” he said. Marcus described how the group was illegally captured by the Israeli Navy in international waters and taken to the Port of Ashdod. There, they and the rest of the Sumud participants were placed in front of Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right Israeli politician, leader of the Otzma Yehudit or “Jewish Power” party, and a known settler in the occupied West Bank. There, Israeli military media showed Ben-Gvir calling them “terrorists” and “Hamas.” This is ironic because Ben-Gvir is a Kahanist, who had a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, the perpetrator of the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, where 27 Palestinian Muslims were murdered, in his house.

After the Israeli propaganda tour, or hasbara, they were then shipped off to the Negev to Ktzi’ot, the largest Israeli prison, or an internment camp, as David Adler called it in this “Democracy Now!” interview. According to Tommy Marcus, the camp holds thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of children. Jessica and Logan chimed in, saying that men and women were separated into different isolation blocks and away from the Palestinian hostages. All five confirmed that some of the Sumud participants were held in 1 by 2 meter cells (3.3 feet by 6.6 feet) for up to 72 hours, a practice widely condemned by human rights groups. 

Marcus continued by describing how IOF guards would hold guns to their heads, try to break them by taking away medicine such as insulin or, in Tommy’s case, Lexapro, and zip-tying their hands behind their backs. Logan Hollarsmith, a captain of the Ohwayla, reported that they could hear the screams of Palestinians despite the isolation, and that there is a sub-level beneath the cellblock they were held in via other Sumud participants, who were familiar with the prison.

During this time, Jessica Clotfelter’s attorney, Farah Chalisa, attempted multiple times to locate Jessica by contacting the U.S. consulate, Jessica’s state representative, Mary E. Miller, and other Israeli and American officials. Representative Miller is a far-right Republican elected to serve Illinois’ Congressional District 15. She said in 2021 that “…Hitler was right on one thing: he said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’” Ironically, when asked about Jessica’s captivity in occupied Bedu-Palestinian lands, Miller’s office responded to a request for comments by stating  that she “support[s] the right for Israel to exist.”

So how did the quintet make it out of Ktzi’ot and end up in Jordan? As mentioned before, participants’ families heard about it from the Japanese Consulate, one of them being Stephen’s brother, who found out through another Sumud participant’s mother that the Americans were being released into Jordan. 

There is only one open land route between the  West Bank and Jordan: the Allenby Bridge, named after Gen. Edmund Allenby, who led British colonial forces tasked with supporting the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in World War I. When the Sumud members were thrown into a blacked-out IOF van bound for Jordan, Tommy Marcus said he thought “…he and David Adler were going to be black bagged or disappeared and that nobody knew where they were headed”. It was Palestinian-American activist Stephen Wahab who caught a glimpse of a sign pointing to the Allenby Bridge in Arabic through a small sliver of exposed window.

In Jordan, the Sumud members were provided a 5-star hotel and traditional Jordanian/Palestinian food. The American participants stated their consulate did not provide for their comforts in Jordan and that these amenities came from the Jordanian government. After six days in prison, the quintet finally had a warm bed and food; they didn’t have to share the toilet bowl in the cellblock for water and sleep on a hard floor anymore. Before going to an official interview with Jackie B. and Fox News 32, Tommy Marcus said they, the Sumud Five, appreciated the global community for amplifying their captivity, but highlighted the importance of continuing to focus on the genocide in Gaza and the Palestinian hostages from Gaza and the West Bank, especially with the ongoing ceasefire Phase 1 talks going on at the time.

As I made my way back home with Jackie B. and Tommy, who was catching a connecting flight to L.A., I thought about the parallels between my Irish ancestors and the Palestinians. With similar experiences, they face or have faced ongoing famines and genocides. As Jackie and I sat on the Blue Line train, I wondered where future generations might place a sculpture commemorating the flotilla’s actions for the Palestinian people in Gaza. Will there be greater cultural exchanges between the Palestinians and the international community? When and how will the genocide and blockade end? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that the resilience of the Palestinian people will live on as they struggle to finally be free.

Though the five Americans we greeted at O’Hare are now safely home, the danger for other activists continues. As of press time, there is one participant from Spain, Reyes Rigo Cervilla, still being held in Israeli captivity. He is imprisoned alongside participants in the recent flotilla “Thousands Madleens to Gaza” that sailed after the Sumud. We stand in solidarity with him and all who sacrifice in the name of a just peace for the Palestinian people.

I cannot begin to describe the bravery of the Sumud quintet had for joining a global flotilla sailing to Gaza to bring aid to the Palestinians. I see very clearly the parallels between the Global Sumud and its heroes and the Great Hunger, which my own family experienced in nineteenth-century Ireland. Even after hundreds of years, colonial tactics remain the same. While there is an ocean between our five heroes and Gaza or the Choctaw and Ireland, there is hope, solidarity, and resilience between all of us. Despite the current situation in Gaza and the horrible violence elsewhere around the world (in Sudan, the Congo, Kashmir, Myanmar, Ukraine, etc.), everyone can do their part, no matter how small. May we all live to see a free Palestine and where all international struggles and the oppressed are free from their shackles of Western imperialism.

The post Famines and Flotillas: From Ireland to Palestine  appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Zohran Mamdani and New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) won the biggest electoral victory of the socialist movement in my lifetime and may have started a new era for the socialist movement. What comes next is up to every organized socialist in DSA and every soon-to-be organized socialist inspired by victories like Zohran’s. 

The post Zohran Won and You Can Do It Too appeared first on Democratic Left.

Digital organizers from the Catherine Connolly campaign give insights into the tech tools that helped drive Connolly and Zohran to victory.

By Dan Albright and Henry De Groot

In the last two weeks, two monumental electoral victories have reenergized the international left: Catherine Connolly’s landslide victory in the Irish Presidential Election, and Zohran Mamdani’s heroic triumph in the New York City mayoral election.

The two campaigns were won both on the doors and online. In addition to both campaigns being powered by massive volunteer participation from broad layers of the socialist and progressive left, the two also utilized almost identical digital infrastructure and strategies.

Here are five of the digital approaches which won it big in 2025.

1. Dynamic Video Content: Instagram, FB Reels, and TikTok

It is almost a cliche now to note that Zohran has found success through his dynamic use of video content, and most especially his man-on-the-street and walk-and-talk style videos. And the same has been noted about Connolly’s campaign, with the commentariat noting her campaign’s use of relatable content (like her keepie-uppies) to drive accidental virality. There is no doubt that video played a significant role in both campaigns, both in conveying a coherent political message capable of assembling a winning coalition and in bringing joy and whimsy into the political arena.

What is also interesting to note—at least for future campaigners seeking to replicate this video-campaigning style—is the use by both campaigns of supporter-sourced content in addition to high-production-value videos. Mamdani’s appearances on popular podcasts, as well as tags in videos by social media influencers and spontaneous volunteers, became a symbol of his popular appeal.

Similarly, on the Connolly campaign, we leaned into the grassroots’ desire to help the campaign, assembling a volunteer video team to edit timely and fun, if imperfect, videos and reels. Staff resources were limited, but the pool of volunteers was almost endless. The entire campaign HQ made it a priority to give volunteers runway to contribute to campaign content, making the social media their own platform as well as Catherine’s, and giving personification to the campaign slogan “Raising Your Voice.” The core team created a brand kit with template guides and graphics, which we shared on easy-to-use, collaborative platforms like Canva and CapCut. With some guidance and feedback, volunteers were able to make significant progress on or almost entirely independently edit content such as other volunteers’ testimonials, event recaps, and candidate appearances on popular podcasts, TV, and radio shows. This freed up the core team to bottom-line to develop key target content to build the core of the campaign’s political narrative and prepare high-production content for paid ads.

It never would have been possible to have the social media presence the campaign achieved without the addition of the volunteer-sourced content, which bulked up the core content with a steady stream of supporter-submitted Instagram and Facebook stories, eventually building up to multiple video and reel posts every day for the last weeks of the campaign. This formula is especially important to note for those candidates who seek to win on a constrained budget.

But for both Zohran and Connolly, the secret sauce was neither greater volume of social content nor jumping onto the trending formats of each week. The key to replicating the video approaches that resonated this election season is presenting the candidate authentically by channeling their idiosyncratic voice, style, and perspective. And that is precisely why phony, corporate candidates trying to replicate the style will come up short.

In her trademark stubbornness to her convictions, Catherine Connolly refused to do anything staged or gimmicky for self-promotion. She’s the polar opposite of Mamdani’s social media-ready style. So instead of trying to copy the now-cliched Mamdani walk-and-talk format or force a TikTok fad recreation, we let the cameras roll and let Catherine do Catherine. What we discovered and leaned into was Catherine’s lighthearted and vulnerable side—her way with children, musical and even dance skills, her game on the court—a balance to the sharp political conviction with which she spoke that she was relatively known for before the campaign. As Catherine spoke of building a movement, simple, supporter-shot moments of Catherine engaging with the people proved to be some of our most viral clips.

2. Attention To Activation: ManyChat

It is no secret that Mamdani and Connolly used video to great effect. But how is attention on Instagram, Facebook, X, or TikTok actually translated into people power?

For a content creator, attention fuels brand deals or direct payments from social media platforms, and for a candidate, attention alone does lead to increased voter awareness, and therefore votes. But raising voter awareness through online means alone is not enough to secure support from voters who are not digital natives.

Rather, even in 2025 victory still lies through winning conversations at the doors. It is deep organizing, not digital, that can build a political coalition which expands beyond pre-existing progressives. And hitting the doors requires a volunteer operation.

Online volunteer sign-ups are nothing new to digital organizing. But the increasing pivot to video-first campaigning introduces a challenge for link-sharing. Instagram does not allow links in posts, “see link in bio.” And as any digital organizer knows, extra steps cost conversions.

Mamdani and Connolly worked around this by integrating their Instagram accounts with third-party software. Applications like ManyChats allow for social media managers to auto-message users a sign-up link in response to a pre-set comment. The Mamdani campaign integrated this directly into its video production, designing entire videos *like the one below from before the primary) with the purpose of driving volunteer signups.

For the Connolly campaign, the comment-conversion feature was used to drive sign-ups not only to canvasses but also to a wide range of events, as well as to drive donations and sales to the campaign’s web shop.

3. The Central Database: Solidarity Tech

Both campaigns relied on the same database software to collect and manage signups and volunteers: Solidarity Tech. This contact relationship software (CRM) built for organizers grew out of the rideshare organizing movement before being taken on by larger institutional unions to facilitate new organizing drives, in the auto industry and elsewhere.

Each campaign’s Solidarity Tech database was the central node of the campaign, where signups could be directed towards campaign events, WhatsApp groups, or volunteer shifts. The databases were used to source specialized volunteers or surrogates for video content, allowing for campaign HQ’s to maximize volunteer participation. Features including email and over-the-phone surveys were used to collect the data needed to drive deeper engagement through targeted or micro-targeted content like volunteer pages in Irish or Bengali, or issue-based sign-on forms such as Artists For Connolly.

And both campaigns made use of Solidarity Tech’s contact automation feature to build out layers of pre-set email and text progressions to allow campaign organizers to engage consistently at scale. Along with the CRM’s standard event reminder features, these automations freed up campaigners from endless outreach so that they could focus more time on in-person conversations on the doors or cultivating good vibes online.

As Solidarity Tech did not yet have full call and SMS features working Ireland, the Connolly campaign required some work arounds or substitutes to compensate for these lost features. The campaign was able to phonebank, but it lacked the campaign staff at HQ to run a full scale phone-banking operation. Irish campaigns are still far more local and in-person based than modern US-based campaigns, and the political culture has yet to fully embrace phone-banking as a mainstay of campaigning.

In the US, on the other hand, phone banking at scale has long been a fundamental of progressive grassroots electoral efforts. The Zohran campaign made more than 2 million calls through Solidarity Tech’s phonebank feature, activating and re-activing volunteers in more than a dozen languages. Especially helpful was the ‘predictive dialer’ feature, which allows a group of several simultaneous phone-bankers to work rapidly through a call list by automating dials to reduce volunteer wait-time in between conversations.

Micah L. Sifry, who runs the tech blog The Connector, interviewed Solidarity Tech founder Ivan Pardo on the details of the Zohran campaign’s use of the software.

Micah: How is the Mamdani campaign using solidarity tech? I was astounded to learn last week that they’re managing something like 90,000 volunteers on a backbone of just a few dozen paid field staff.

Ivan: They’re using it essentially for organizing their army of volunteers. If you go to the field office, you’ll seeing everybody’s screen having their Solidarity Tech text inbox open. That’s where the field teams are spending a lot of their day. There’s been a lot of attention on how they’ve used social media, making catchy little videos that captured a lot of attention. But what happened next is typically, they’d follow it up, say, if it’s on Twitter, the tweet right after it would be a link to the volunteer page. All those pages are hosted on Solidarity Tech. Every session, whether it’s canvassing, phonebanking, or whatever event the campaign is hosting, they capture all the RSVPs through Solidarity Tech. Every form essentially acts as an intake form, getting people into the system. And then we want to, first ensure that people show up for the event that they committed to. So first we send all the reminders that come with all of that.

But then there’s the processes that the app facilitates so the campaign can work to try and get the most out of the existing volunteers. There’s automations via text/email from an initial email with a calendar invite, to text/emails with confirmation links, to aggregated emails/texts reminders with all your shifts during a given period. And then there’s the ability to do smart targeted outreach to past volunteers to get further engaged. And everything is tracked in one place. They’ll be doing the phone banking, the text banking, the volunteers, emailing to volunteers throughout with, you know, with the product, taking attendance of everybody who showed up at events, plus the passive tracking of an influence map of built from referral tracking, knowing who’s bringing who–all of that lives in the product.

So they have this really clear picture of every volunteer’s level of engagement and what they’ve done. And that can inform future asks that they make of those volunteers. All of that lives in the product. Much of the mechanics of how they’ve been engaging volunteers is campaign specific. But the app is designed in such a way that it allows you to figure out that strategy and enact it really well.

Check out the full interview if you want insight into more technical details of running a mass engagement internal tool.

4. Online-To-Offline: Volunteer Event Maps

The Zohran campaign built its own custom volunteer map page to geographically display its array of Solidarity Tech RSVP pages, taking innovation from a tactic used effectively in the Bernie 2020 campaign. 

Volunteer event maps helped facilitate engagement at the hyper-local level, helping supporters clearly visualize volunteer opportunities, and therefore driving the high levels of door-knocking which was needed to win the campaign in the field. Eventually the Zohran campaign had literally hundreds of canvass shifts available for sign-up at ZohranForNYC.com/volunteer/events. Traffic was driven to these events both directly from social media (via the comment-engagement feature explored above) as well as re-targeting through email appeals, text blasts, and phonebanks.

Within weeks, the feature was replicated by the Solidarity Tech team so it could be used by the Connolly campaign. The Connolly campaign replicated the basic function of mapping canvassing shifts. But it also used created a second campaign map page to highlight locally-organized cultural events, including trad music nights, nature walks, and pub quizzes, as well as opportunities to meet up with Catherine as she traveled the country twice over. Although the page has now been decommissioned, you can get a sense of what it looked like by viewing the saved instance in the Wayback Archive.

In this way, the campaign leaned into a vibes-based, personable approach to campaigning. This was not only run in parallel with a more target-focused, traditional canvassing turnout approach, but also served as an accessible entry point to active supporters beyond the “usual suspects” to engage a new layer of progressives in political activism. 

zohran mamdani has 195 canvassing shifts today. if each shift has 10 people (often there are two or three times that), and it’s 10 doors a person it’s 19,000 doors knocked today pic.twitter.com/yC4DizXU6L

— Aakar Patel (@Aakar__Patel) October 25, 2025

5. Digital, But Local: WhatsApp Communities

There is a long-standing dispute within DSA about which is a better messaging tool: Signal, WhatsApp, or Discord. And I hate to say it, but this election season has proved the WhatsApp supporters right. 

With the introduction of WhatsApp Communities in 2022, multiple group chats can be integrated into one ecosystem, or “Community.” This replicates the depth of engagement made possible by apps like Discord, without the same obstacle of accessibility.

The Zohran campaign made use of local WhatsApp communities to powerful effect, to bring together supporters in local areas as well as to connect voters from the same language or interest groups. Basing the campaign on WhatsApp allowed the campaign to more easily access the countless immigrant communities in New York City, many of which already use WhatsApp to communicate among themselves and with family back home. Although the main contact management work primarily lived in Solidarity Tech, these functioned happened in the back-end. For most supporters and volunteers, ‘joining’ the campaign online meant participating in a local WhatsApp group.

The role of WhatsApp was perhaps even more prominent on the Connolly campaign, where, in Ireland as in many countries, it is already both the primary way to message and the existing predominant choice for coordinating progressive groups. Local WhatsApps were formed across the country and also among ‘affinity groups,’ like Students For Connolly or Artists For Connolly, in order to facilitate collaboration. The Connolly campaign even built an in-house “WhatsApper,” which facilitated the text-banking of contacts stored in Solidarity Tech through WhatsApp, a workaround necessary to replace the CRM’s SMS feature, which is not yet operational in Ireland.

The distributed nature and possibilities for mass participation that WhatsApp groups facilitated was not without its headaches. Campaigns are ultimately responsible for ensuring all of their spaces live up to the campaigns values, and this includes group chats. It should surprise no one that some supporters lack discretion or good manners, and so campaign HQs must establish correct oversight principles and source volunteer supervisors to ensure that local WhatsApp groups do not end up tearing the campaign apart.

There is also the issue that assembling supporters in a WhatsApp group is not exactly ‘job done’ organizing. Often the same small group of supporters make up the vast majority of posts, leaving less engaged supporters feeling overwhelmed. It takes more targeted and persistent engagement over-and-above simply existing in a group chat in order to secure active participation from less engaged layers of supporters. But nonetheless, these group chats allow for supporters to take initiative at the local level, bolstering centralized ‘broadcast-style’ channels based at HQ with a healthy dose of horizontal self-organization. Empowering local activists take initiative increases their investment in the campaign and can genuinely lead to some fantastic innovations not thought of by HQ.

---

International Solidarity, Parallel Victories

In fact, it was no accident that the two campaigns share a number of similarities in both political messaging and organizing methods.

The multi-party alliance which assembled during the Connolly campaign from its early days—including People Before Profit, the Social Democrats, the Green Party, and independent leftist trade union and housing activists—was in some ways the exact Irish parallel to the early Zohran coalition of the Democratic Socialist of America’s New York City chapter and its close allies like the New York Communities For Change.

In both cases, an early consolidation by the political left allowed the two campaigns to pick up less radical endorsements, such as the Working Families Party and the Irish Labour Party. Then, this momentum paved the way for support from the institutional center-left, with Brad Lander and many Democrats joining the Mamdani wagon between the primary win and the general election, while Sinn Féin endorsed Connolly around one month before the Irish election, consolidating her place as the official candidate of the opposition.

And the two campaigns were not only built of virtually identical political coalitions, but also almost identical campaign technological infrastructure, with the Zohran campaign providing the Connolly campaign with tactical insights in its early days.

The relative similarity in district size and election-day results further underlines the parallel nature of the two campaigns. Despite the tremendous, almost comical stylistic differences between Zohran’s triumph in metropolitan NYC and the Gal From Galway’s successful run for the Irish Presidency, the actual election results in both cases are quite similar.

New York City has a population of some 8.5 million, with around 5 million registered voters. Turnout in New York was around 40 percent, and Mamdani won 1,036,051 out of 2,055,921, or 50.4 percent to Cuomo’s 41.6 percent and Sliwa’s 7.1 percent.

The Republic of Ireland has a population of around 5.5 million, with some 3.6 million registered voters. Irish turnout was around 45 percent, with Connolly receiving 914,143 out of 1,656,436 total votes, or (when including spoiled votes) 55.1 percent, to Humphrey’s 25.6 percent, Gavin’s 6.2 percent, and 12.9 percent of ballots spoilt, mostly by right-wing voters.

A Playbook For 2026

With 2025 elections drawing to a close in the United States, the 2026 midterm season has officially begun.

As DSA chapters and candidates look to build on Zohran’s win, they will no doubt seek to also replicate his digital strategies. And American organizers can also learn much from Connolly’s win. And the corporate Democrats will undoubtedly also try to ape this digital playbook to gain an edge for neoliberal centrists.

And while much can be learned by studying the 5 digital tactics explored above, it also worth remembering the political fundamentals of the two campaigns which they were deployed on top of in both cases: an authentic, charismatic candidate; an ambitious, radical-minded campaign staff; a program which speaks to the needs and dignity of everyday people; and a vision of a better world.

Digital tactics weren’t the secret sauce, they were just the plate upon which to platform radical candidates with powerful movements behind them. So we know when the corporate Democrats try to replicate these tools in 2026, their plates will be empty.

Dan Albright is a founder and the Board Chair of Working Mass. Henry De Groot is an editor and a founder of Working Mass.

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Winning Online: 5 Digital Tactics That Powered Connolly and Zohran To Victory.

The two biggest upsets in 2025 used digital organizing to turn online attention into on-the-ground power.

They laid out a powerful playbook for DSA in 2026.

1/ https://t.co/2SsZTV5cez

— Working Mass (@workingmassmag) November 6, 2025

The post Winning Online: 5 Digital Tactics That Powered Connolly and Zohran To Victory appeared first on Working Mass.

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Digital organizers from the Catherine Connolly campaign give insights into the tech tools that helped drive Connolly and Zohran to victory.

By Dan Albright and Henry De Groot

In the last two weeks, two monumental electoral victories have reenergized the international left: Catherine Connolly’s landslide victory in the Irish Presidential Election, and Zohran Mamdani’s heroic triumph in the New York City mayoral election.

The two campaigns were won both on the doors and online. In addition to both campaigns being powered by massive volunteer participation from broad layers of the socialist and progressive left, the two also utilized almost identical digital infrastructure and strategies.

Here are five of the digital approaches which won it big in 2025.

1. Dynamic Video Content: Instagram, FB Reels, and TikTok

It is almost a cliche now to note that Zohran has found success through his dynamic use of video content, and most especially his “man on the street” and “walk and talk” style videos. And the same has been noted about Connolly’s campaign, with the commentariat noting her campaign’s use of relatable content (like her keepie-uppies) to drive accidental virality. There is no doubt that video played a significant role in both campaigns, both in conveying a coherent political message capable of assembling a winning coalition and in bringing joy and whimsy into the political arena.

What is also interesting to note—at least for future campaigners seeking to replicate this video-campaigning style—is the use by both campaigns of supporter-sourced content in addition to high production value videos. Mamdani’s appearances on popular podcasts as well as tags in videos by social media influencers and spontaneous volunteers became a symbol of his popular appeal. Similarly, on the Connolly campaign, we leaned into grassroots desire to help the campaign, assembling a volunteer video team to edit timely and fun, if imperfect, videos and reels. We made it a priority, time allowing, to give volunteers runway to contribute as well as a platform for their work that they could be proud of. The core team created a brand kit of template guides and graphics that we shared on easy-to-use, collaborative platforms like Canva and CapCut. With some guidance and feedback, volunteers were able to make significant progress on or almost entirely independently edit content such as other volunteers’ testimonials, event recaps, and candidate appearances on popular podcasts, TV, and radio shows. Alongside high production value content we created, this content helped provide a steady stream of IG/FB story content and even video and reel posts throughout every day of the campaign. 

But the secret sauce was neither greater volume of social content nor jumping onto the trending formats of each week. The key is presenting the candidate authentically by channeling their ideosyncratic voice, style and perspective. In her trademark stubbornness to her convictions, Catherine Connolly refused to do anything staged or gimmicky for self-promotion. She’s the polar opposite of Mamdani’s social media ready style. So instead of trying to copy the now-cliched Mamdani walk-and-talk format or force a TikTok fad recreation, we let the cameras roll and let Catherine do Catherine. What we discovered and leaned into was Catherine’s vulnerable side—her comradely athleticism, musical skill, and playful way with children—the perfect counterbalance to the moral clarity and conviction that she was known for before the campaign. As Catherine spoke of building a movement, moments of Catherine engaging with the people proved to be some of our most viral clips.

2. Attention To Activation: ManyChat

It is no secret that Mamdani and Connolly used video to great effect. But how is attention on Instagram, X, or TikTok actually translated into people power? For a content creator, attention fuels brand deals or direct payments from social media platforms, and for a candidate, attention alone does lead to increased voter awareness, and therefore votes.

But attention can also lead to volunteer activation. Like the Mamdani campaign, we leveraged Manychat to direct message actionable links to engaged viewers. This led to thousands of contacts we could feed into our supporter development pipeline.

3. The Central Database: Solidarity Tech

Both campaigns relied on the same database software to collect and manage signups and volunteers: Solidarity Tech. This contact relationship software (CRM) built for organizers grew out of the rideshare organizing movement before being taken on by larger institutional unions to facilitate new organizing drives, in the auto industry and elsewhere.

Each campaign’s Solidarity Tech database was the central node of the campaign, where signups could be directed towards campaign events, WhatsApp groups, or volunteer shifts. The databases were used to source specialized volunteers or surrogates for video content, allowing for campaign HQ’s to maximize volunteer participation. They were also used to drive deeper engagement through targeted or micro-targeted content like volunteer pages in Irish or Bengali, or issue-based sign-on forms such as Artists For Connolly. And both campaigns made use of Solidarity Tech’s contact automation feature to build out layers of pre-set email and text progressions to allow campaign organizers to engage consistently at scale.

4. Online-To-Offline: Volunteer Event Maps

The Zohran campaign built its own custom volunteer map page to geographically display its array of Solidarity Tech RSVP pages, taking innovation from a tactic used effectively in the Bernie 2020 campaign. 

Volunteer event maps helped facilitate engagement at the hyper-local level, helping supporters clearly visualize volunteer opportunities, and therefore driving the high levels of doorknocking which was needed to win the campaign in the field.

Within weeks, the feature was replicated by the Solidarity Tech team so it could be used by the Connolly campaign. The Connolly campaign replicated the basic function of mapping canvassing shifts. But it also used the campaign map to facilitate locally organized cultural events, including trad music nights, nature walks, pub quizzes, and opportunities to meet up with Catherine as she traveled the country twice over.

In this way, the campaign leaned into a vibes-based, personable approach to campaigning. This was not only run in parallel with a more target-focused, traditional canvassing turnout approach, but also served as an accessible entry point to active supporters beyond the “usual suspects” to engage a new layer of progressives in political activism. 

5. Digital, But Local: WhatsApp Communities

There is a long-standing dispute within DSA about which is a better messaging tool: Signal, WhatsApp, or Discord.

And I hate to say it, but this election season has proved the WhatsAppers right. 

With the introduction of WhatsApp Communities in 2022, multiple group chats can be integrated into one ecosystem, or “Community.” This replicates the depth of engagement made possible by apps like Discord, without the same obstacle of accessibility.

The Zohran campaign made use of local WhatsApp communities to powerful effect, to bring together … This also allowed the campaign to more easily access the countless immigrant communities in New York City, many of which already use WhatsApp to communicate among themselves and with family back home.

The role of WhatsApp was perhaps even more prominent on the Connolly campaign, where, in Ireland as in many countries, it is already both the primary way to message and the existing predominant choice for coordinating progressive groups.

The campaign even built an in-house “WhatsApper,” which facilitated the text-banking of contacts stored in Solidarity Tech through WhatsApp, a workaround necessary to replace the CRM’s SMS feature, which is not yet operational in Ireland.

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International Solidarity, Parallel Victories

And it’s no accident that the two campaigns share a number of similarities in both political messaging and organizing methods.

The multi-party alliance which assembled during the Connolly campaign from its early days—including People Before Profit, the Social Democrats, the Green Party, and independent leftist trade union and housing activists—was in some ways the exact Irish parallel to the early Zohran coalition of the Democratic Socialist of America’s New York City chapter and its close allies like the New York Communities For Change.

In both cases, an early consolidation by the political left allowed the two campaigns to pick up less radical endorsements, such as the Working Families Party and the Irish Labour Party. Then, this momentum paved the way for support from the institutional center-left, with Brad Lander and many Democrats joining the Mamdani wagon between the primary win and the general election, while Sinn Féin endorsed Connolly around one month before the Irish election, consolidating her place as the official candidate of the opposition.

And the two campaigns were not only built of virtually identical political coalitions, but also almost identical campaign technological infrastructure, with the Zohran campaign providing the Connolly campaign with tactical insights in its early days.
Despite the tremendous, almost comical stylistic differences between Zohran’s triumph in metropolitan NYC and the Gal From Galway’s successful run for the Irish Presidency, the actual election results in both cases are quite similar.

New York City has a population of some 8.5 million, with around 5 million registered voters. Turnout in New York was around 40 percent, and Mamdani won 1,036,051 out of 2,055,921, or 50.4 percent to Cuomo’s 41.6 percent and Sliwa’s 7.1 percent.

The Republic of Ireland has a population of around 5.5 million, with some 3.6 million registered voters. Irish turnout was around 45 percent, with Connolly receiving 914,143 out of 1,656,436 total votes, or (when including spoiled votes) 55.1 percent, to Humphrey’s 25.6 percent, Gavin’s 6.2 percent, and 12.9 percent of ballots spoilt, mostly by right-wing voters.

Dan Albright is a founder and the Board Chair of Working Mass. Henry De Groot is an editor and a founder of Working Mass.

The post The Digital Playbook: 5 Tactics That Helped Connolly and Zohran Win appeared first on Working Mass.

“}]] 

Hours of testimony provided to the DC Commission on Human Rights revealed an unceasing tapestry of human rights violations committed by ICE, MPD and other federal agents.

Statement from the North NJ DSA Executive Committee Working-class people in Jersey City were inspired by the platforms of two democratic socialists, Jake Ephros and Joel Brooks, and sent both […]

Rochester DSA congratulates our comrades here in Rochester: Stanley Martin and Kee Kee Smith, on election to Rochester City Council! We also congratulate our comrade Zohran Mamdani in New York City, along with other DSA candidates, on electoral victories across the country.

These victories, just like those in the June primary, demonstrate that the working class is done with the neoliberal status quo. Hundreds of thousands of working class New Yorkers turned out to vote for socialism because they know that socialism will address their material needs; and that socialism is the only means to effectively combat fascism.

These victories come from the efforts of over 50,000 volunteers who – from knocking doors to managing social media – contributed an untold amount of work into these campaigns. However, our work has only just begun. An electoral win is not the final victory. Our Socialists in Office need the community to support them along the way. The working class must organize in the workplace and in the streets, as well as the halls of power, to bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old.

A better world is possible; let’s build it together: dsausa.us/join.

The post Chapter Statement on Electoral Victories first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Happy Halloween, socialists! Have fun out there tonight, and if you're dressed up as a zombie, remember only to eat the rich.

Soon enough, it'll be back to business: for the next couple weeks, we'll be getting ready for our annual chapter convention on Sunday, Nov. 16, at the Old Labor Hall (46 Granite St.) in Barre. There, we'll elect new officers and set priorities for 2026.

No event plays a bigger role in shaping the direction of our chapter's work. We need your attendance!

And if you're a member, you still have time to declare your candidacy for an officer position or to submit a resolution or bylaws amendment. We'd like to receive proposals by Nov. 3 in order to give ourselves time to put together a convention bulletin.

RSVP here. We'll start with a potluck at 11 a.m. Carpools will be available. See our flyer and a couple photos from last year below.

Meanwhile, those of you who live in Burlington may have heard that GMDSA member Marek Broderick has announced his bid for reelection as Ward 8's city councilor. If you missed the launch party last week at Folino's Pizza, you can learn more about Marek's campaign on his website.

Below, you'll find a smaller-than-usual calendar of GMDSA committee meetings. That's because all of our committees must be reauthorized annually at the chapter convention: after Nov. 16, we technically don't know which committees will or won't exist.

If you want to create a new one, you can do so by submitting a resolution. You can email us here if you need any help writing one or have any other questions about the convention. See you on Nov. 16!

GMDSA MEETINGS & EVENTS
🚲 Our Urbanism Committee will meet on Monday, Nov. 3, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🧑‍🏭 The next meeting of our Labor Committee will take place on Monday, Nov. 10, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🔨 Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted by the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including Nov. 12, at 6 p.m. at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington).

‼️ Again, our annual chapter convention will take place on Sunday, Nov. 16, at Barre's Old Labor Hall (46 Granite St.) at 11 a.m.

STATE AND LOCAL NEWS
📰 Burlington band Marxist Jargon has released a new album, to each according to their needs.

📰 The Vermont State Employees' Association staged a demonstration in Waterbury against Gov. Scott, who has ordered the state's remote workers to return to the office by Dec. 1.

COMMUNITY FLYERS

By: Jane Slaughter

This article represents the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of The Detroit Socialist or Metro Detroit DSA as a whole.

A hot take on Zohran Mamdani’s win: Zohran won while leaning into socialism, not downplaying it.

Partly this wasn’t his choice: the media picked up on his DSA membership and hammered him with it. But over the course of the campaign, Zohran actually became more outspoken about being a democratic socialist as he went along, far more than just having the DSA logo on his literature.

Does this mean that the million New Yorkers who voted for Zohran are all pro-socialist? No, but it does mean that they weren’t scared off by Zohran’s allegiance to socialism — and that they appreciated his honesty and forthrightness, his refusal to back off and start using weasel words.

“I am young. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this,” he said in his victory speech.

That’s similar to Bernie in 2016 and 2020. Bernie’s version of socialism often seemed to be synonymous with the New Deal (so, not actually getting rid of capitalism) — but people appreciated his consistency over the years and, again, his refusal to let the red-baiters back him off.

Around the country, DSA often backs candidates who are kind of progressive but don’t openly identify as socialists. We call their campaigns “socialist” because we’re supporting them, but their platforms aren’t distinguishable from any good-government pol–certainly not rising to the level of the life-changing planks of Zohran’s platform. (Imagine what it would mean for an average family to suddenly be able to get free childcare! To have their rent frozen! To get to work reliably on time! It’s still capitalism, but it does inspire ordinary people to think they matter.)

For me, Zohran’s win means we can be bolder in our electoral runs. We don’t have to hide our socialist light under a bushel. We can lift our constituents’ aspirations higher.

Zohran didn’t talk about the “middle class.” He talked to the working class.

BUILD IT FOREVER

Another crucial point about the campaign (and there are many) is that Zohran explicitly asked his army of volunteers not to just go home and rest after Election Day. “This is part of a lifelong struggle,” he told his volunteers. “Not an electoral one. You have joined a movement for the rest of your life. Now, however you want to be a part of that movement is your decision, just as long as you continue to be a part of it.”

That will be the hard part–convincing tens of thousands of people that they have a part to play in winning the Zohran agenda, and finding meaningful ways for all those people to participate now that the canvassing is done. Not him, us!

Several New York DSAers have floated ideas for how that could happen:

“Rather than disbanding his massive volunteer machine after November 4 — as is the norm in electoral operations — Zohran’s team could transition it into a broader organizing apparatus to help secure his agenda under the banner of a broad new campaign, something like a Movement for an Affordable New York (MANY).” — Eric Blanc, Wen Zhuang and Emily Lemmerman

“We propose the formation of a proto-party like what Mayor Bernie Sanders built in Burlington — a place where tens of thousands of volunteers can go to keep organizing beyond the November election.” — Jeremy Gong and Oren Schweitzer

“A group of unions and community organizations came together to form a citywide alliance called the People’s Majority Alliance — to be ready to go into the streets, to lobby the city council and state legislature, and to keep up the organizing we need to bring a bold agenda into being.” — Stephanie Luce

“This is a great moment to get serious about organizing thousands of workers who want a union and don’t have one.” — Brandon Mancilla

Some of their ideas are more exciting than others. We sure don’t want to replicate the tired formula of an NGO-driven “table” where the heads of nonprofits meet to speak on behalf of their supposed (unorganized) constituents. I hope and assume NYC DSA is aggressively recruiting those who volunteered on the campaign–and will invent creative campaigns both for them and for tens of thousands of other New Yorkers. I stand in awe of their audacity in beginning this campaign and their skill in growing it huge.

Finally, just a quote from Zohran Mamdani, who cited Eugene Debs in his victory speech: “The truth is as simple as it is nonnegotiable: we are all allowed freedom. Each one of us, the working people of this city, the taxi drivers, the line cooks, the nurses, all those seeking lives of grace, not greed — we all get to be free.”

Jane Slaughter is a member of Metro Detroit DSA and a retired Editor for Labor Notes.

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Zohran Won While Leaning into Socialism, Not Downplaying It was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Democratic Socialist Kelsea Bond was just elected to the Atlanta City Council. Kelsea is a long-time DSA member and organizer. For many years, they have worked closely with local labor unions to expand workers’ rights on picket lines, at sip-ins and community meetings, in marches, and inside and outside of the State Capitol. They have canvassed for reproductive justice and advocated for the City to fund life-saving abortion care. They have fought to Stop Cop City and instead fund public services, build affordable housing, and expand mass transit. Our Chapter is immensely proud of their victory, as well as the work of the hundreds of volunteers and Atlanta DSA members who made this historic win possible.

For months, our members knocked doors and talked to District 2 residents about the issues that matter to working people — affordable housing, green public transit, and an economy for the 99%. The success that came from this massive effort proves that these bread-and-butter issues are broadly and deeply popular — even here in the deep south, even in a city whose government too often bends to corporate interests and the capitalist class.

This people-powered campaign was about standing up to billionaire commercial property owners who aren’t paying their fair share in taxes, and colluding landlords who are jacking up our rent year after year. It was about closing Atlanta’s wealth gap, which is one of the highest in the nation, by fighting for workers’ rights and a guaranteed living wage. It was about protecting the trans and immigrant members of our community, who are under attack by the fascist Trump administration and the Republican-controlled State government.

It was about building greener, more resilient city infrastructure that can withstand climate disaster and make Atlanta a more convenient and affordable place to call home. It was about ensuring that no Atlanta resident is without housing, healthcare, and a truly democratic say in how our city is run. We plan to continue our fight for working-class Atlantans alongside proud DSA member and Atlanta City Councilmember Kelsea Bond this spring, and we’re bringing the movement into City Hall with us.

Help us maintain our momentum and continue our work to make Atlanta more affordable, equitable, and safe for the 99%. This election is only the beginning. From here, we’ll continue relentlessly organizing to build a mass movement for working people.

Get involved today with Atlanta DSA to be a part of this fight, and win the socialist future workers deserve: atldsa.org/organize