Last month, energized by growing membership and recent electoral victories—including Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral primary win—the Democratic Socialists of America convened in Chicago. The disagreements were the usual for the group: the needs of electoralism pitted against the goals of radicalism. But, overall, the goal was the same. DSA wants to win.
Building support outside its base was a recurring theme throughout the convention. This year, for the first time, DSA hosted 40 outside guests. They represented labor unions, community organizations, and international political parties. “We need relationships with regular people who believe a better world is possible,” said Laura Waldin, from Portland, Oregon, who organized the political exchange.
The guests included keynote speaker Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who gave a rallying speech. But she also pushed DSA. The congresswoman took them to task for not having a diverse enough leadership body and urged delegates to organize on the street and in face-to-face conversations. It is DSA’s duty “to cultivate this power—people power—into a force that can fight fascism,” she said.
That fight may soon take on a new dimension. The more than 1200 assembled delegates voted to field a presidential candidate in 2028 so that working class struggles can take center stage.
Jeremy Cohan, former co-chair of NYC DSA and newly elected member of the National Political Committee, joined DSA after campaigning for Sen. Bernie Sanders, and voted for the measure to bring forward a 2028 candidate. He said it was a mistake to have sat out of the 2024 election and not confronted Biden. “The primary is a site of struggle,” Cohan told me.
Internal member disputes and financial woes had stymied the DSA national governing body in the past few years. But local chapters have grown rapidly. Around 250 DSA members hold elected office nationwide. Portland’s city council has four DSA members in a 12-person council. And, earlier this month, DSA member Denzel McCampbell squeaked out a primary victory for Detroit City Council. (Campbell volunteers powered by DSA knocked on 15,000 doors.)
In July, Minnesota state senator and DSA member Omar Fateh won his primary for mayor of Minneapolis against an incumbent candidate. And, of course, there is Zohran Mamdani, whose historic campaign helped double the NYC DSA chapter to over 11,000 members, by far the largest in the country. A recent Siena poll has Mamdani 20 points ahead of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the November mayoral race.
While electoral wins may be the most visible manifestation of DSA strength, its other areas of militant organizing attract many members, too. Jessica Czarnecki, a restaurant hostess from Brunswick, Maine, joined DSA in June 2023 after she and co-workers at her local coffee shop went on strike and were shut out by their boss. She recalled how DSA showed up on the picket line and financially contributed to a strike fund.
“I need to be in an organization that made a material difference in my life,” she said. While she and her co-workers lost the strike and the coffee house shut down, she doesn’t see it as a loss. “The connections we made from that experience is the win,” she said. She has personally recruited around 20 new members to her DSA chapter, and they organized a tenants’ rights meeting last year.
Dominic Bruno, an electrician from Pittsburgh, said he joined up after DSA members defended him against police officer at a 2017 protest to honor Heather Heyer, who was killed at the white power Unite the Right rally in Charlottsville.
Since then he’s worked to build the chapter of around 700 members by bringing “social back into socialism.” The group hosts cocktails for comrades and coffee for comrades, hiking meet ups, free shops and swaps, mutual aid, twice monthly hot food distros, and a DSA community garden.
