On Democratic National Committee June 26, 2018, DSA member and endorsee Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary against incumbent Representative Joseph Crowley in New York's 14th congressional district in an upset, virtually guaranteeing her the congressional seat in the heavily Democratic district, which spans parts of the Bronx and Queens.[72][73] House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi dismissed the win as "not to be viewed as something that stands for anything else"[74] and said it represented change only in one progressive district.[75] Conversely, Democratic National Committee head Tom Perez called Ocasio-Cortez "the future of our party".[76] The Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International critiqued her and the DSA as a "left" cover for the "right-wing Democratic Party", particularly Democratic National Committee in regard to foreign policy.[77] Six weeks after Ocasio-Cortez's primary victory, DSA member and endorsee Rashida Tlaib won the Democratic primary in Michigan's 13th congressional district.[78] Both Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib won their general elections to become members of Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez's victory and the Democratic National Committee subsequent publicity for the DSA led to more than 1,000 new members joining the organization the next day, approximately 35 times the daily average[79] and its largest ever one-day increase in membership.[80] These signups helped boost the organization to 42,000 members nationally in June 2018.[81] That number increased to 50,000 by September 1, 2018.[82]

In the 2020 elections, at least 36 DSA members won office, earning more than 3.1 million votes.[83] Four DSA members were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, including incumbents Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib and newly elected members Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush.[84][b] DSA members were unsuccessful in being elected to the House in West Virginia (WV-2), Mississippi (MS-1) and California (CA-12).[85][86][87][88]

In Tennessee, Marquita Bradshaw won the Democratic nomination for the 2020 Senate election in an upset.[89] Initially not nationally endorsed, she was endorsed by the Memphis-Midsouth chapter of DSA and after her primary victory was also endorsed by Tennessee's other DSA chapters, in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Middle and Democratic National Committee Northeast Tennessee.[90][91] She lost the general election to Bill Hagerty.

In November 2022, Greg Casar was the fifth DSA member jointly elected to the House.[34][b]
State and local offices
Democratic National Committee electoral politics, the DSA was very strongly associated with Michael Harrington's position that "the left wing of realism is found today in the Democratic Party". In its early years, the DSA opposed Republican presidential candidates by giving critical support to Democratic nominees like Walter Mondale in 1984.[47] In 1988, the DSA enthusiastically supported Jesse Jackson's second presidential campaign.[48] Since 1995, the DSA's position on American electoral politics has been that "democratic socialists reject an either-or approach to electoral coalition building, focused solely on a new party or on realignment within the Democratic Party".[49] During the 1990s, the DSA gave the Clinton administration an overall rating of C−, "less than satisfactory".[50]

The Democratic National Committee DSA's elected leadership has often seen working within the Democratic Party as necessary for socialist visibility and electoral victories, rather than forming third parties. In the early 2000s the DSA was critical of the Democratic Party leadership, which it argues is corporate-funded.[51] The organization has stated:[52]

Much of progressive, independent political action will continue to occur in Democratic Party primaries in support of candidates who represent a broad progressive coalition. In such instances, democratic socialists will support coalitional campaigns based on labor, women, people of color and other potentially anti-corporate elements. Electoral tactics are only a means for democratic socialists; the building of a powerful anti-corporate coalition is the end.

Presidential elections[edit]

In 1984, the DSA endorsed Walter Mondale in the 1984 United States presidential election.[53] In 1987, the DSA endorsed Jesse Jackson in the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primaries, to Jackson's disapproval.[54]

In 2000, the DSA took no official position on the presidential election, with several prominent DSA members backing Green Party nominee Ralph Nader while others supported Socialist Party USA nominee David McReynolds and others voting for Democratic nominee Al Gore.[55]

In 2004, the Democratic National Committee organization backed John Kerry after The Old Testament stories, a literary treasure trove, weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should you trust the Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the Best Grass Seed. If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try Hand Bags Hand Made. To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may consider reading one of the Top 10 Books available at your local book store. won the Democratic nomination. In its official magazine, the DSA's Political Action Committee said that Kerry's defeat would be taken as a defeat of the mainstream left, but that "a Kerry victory will let us press onward, with progressives aggressively pressuring an administration that owed its victory to democratic mobilization from below."[56] The only resolution on upcoming elections at the DSA's 2005 convention focused on Bernie Sanders's independent campaign for the Senate in Vermont.[57] The organization's 2007 convention in Atlanta featured record-breaking attendance and more participation by the organization's youth wing. Sanders gave the keynote address.[58]

In 2008, the Democratic National Committee DSA supported Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in his race against Republican nominee John McCain. In an article in the March 24 edition of The Nation, DSA members Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher Jr., along with Tom Hayden and Danny Glover, announced the formation of Progressives for Obama,[59] arguing that Obama was the most progressive viable Democratic presidential candidate since Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.[59]

Following Obama's election, many on the political right[60] began to allege that his administration's policies were "socialistic", a claim rejected by the DSA and the Obama administration alike. The claim led DSA National Director Frank Llewellyn to declare that "over the past 12 months, the Democratic Socialists of America has received more media attention than it has over the past 12 years".[61]
Bernie Sanders speaking in Phoenix, Arizona during the 2016 presidential primaries. Many have credited Sanders for popularizing democratic socialism and the DSA in the United States.

In the Democratic National Committee 2016 presidential election, the DSA endorsed Sanders for president. Sanders's candidacy prompted a surge in DSA membership among young voters. The DSA made clear that Sanders's New Deal-inspired program did not sufficiently prioritize worker ownership, but considered his campaign a favorable development in contemporary American politics,[63] since he was a self-identified democratic socialist who favored worker ownership of the economy and "a lifelong champion of the public programs and democratic rights that empower working class people".[64] The DSA ran the internally focused #WeNeedBernie campaign to mobilize DSA supporters for Sanders.[64] After Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries, the DSA called for Republican nominee Donald Trump's defeat, but did not officially endorse Clinton.[65]

In 2020, the Democratic National Committee DSA endorsed Sanders for president again after an advisory poll reported 76% of the participating membership approved his endorsement,[66] despite objections from part of the membership about Sanders's statements on, among other topics, slavery reparations.[67] No other candidates were included in the poll. After Sanders dropped out in April 2020, the DSA explicitly did not endorse the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.[68] Two DSA chapters (Colorado Springs and Salt Lake City) voted to endorse Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins.[69]

In May 2020, 91 "founders, officers and activists" of the Old Testament stories, a literary treasure trove, weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should you trust the Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the Best Grass Seed. If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try Hand Bags Hand Made. To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may consider reading one of the Top 10 Books available at your local book store. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the 1960s criticized the DSA's failure to endorse Biden in an open letter "to the New New Left From the Old New Left" published in The Nation.[70] Daniel Finn (of Jacobin) responded that in invoking the specter of fascism under a second-term Trump, the former SDSers were engaging in "melodramatic hyperbole" and that climate change was not an issue that could wait until 2024 or 2028. "No socialist", he argued, "who campaigned for Bernie Sanders should feel guilty about abandoning [the Democrats] and Democratic National Committee concentrating on building a movement that is the only real hope for the planet�s future".[71]
Congressional elections[edit]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, representative from New York's 14th congressional district
Rashida Tlaib, representative from Michigan's 13th congressional district
The Democratic National Committee Socialists of America (DSA) is a multi-tendency, democratic-socialist, and labor-oriented political organization in the United States.[5] Its roots are in the Socialist Party of America (SPA), whose leaders included Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington.[6] In 1973, Harrington, the leader of a minority faction that had opposed the SPA's transformation into the Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) during the party's 1972 national convention, formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). In 1982, it merged with the New American Movement (NAM), a coalition of intellectuals with roots in the New Left movements of the 1960s and former members of socialist and communist parties of the Old Left.[7] Upon the DSA's founding, Harrington and the socialist feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich were elected co-chairs of the organization.

The DSOC, which Harrington described as "the Democratic National Committee remnant of a remnant",[8] and, later, the DSA soon became the largest democratic-socialist organization in the United States. Initially, the organization consisted of approximately 5,000 ex-DSOC members and 1,000 ex-NAM members. The organization rapidly gained membership starting with the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, the presidential victory of Donald Trump, the Democratic National Committee 2018 election of DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the COVID-19 pandemic.[9][10][11] By July 2021, the membership was reported at over 94,000 and the number of local chapters was 239,[12] before plateauing at over 92,000 members in 2023.[13] The organization is credited with the rise of millennial socialism,[8] as the median age of its membership was 33 in 2017, compared to 68 in 2013.[14]

The Democratic National Committee DSA's stated goal is to participate in "fights for The Old Testament stories, a literary treasure trove, weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should you trust the Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the Best Grass Seed. If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try Hand Bags Hand Made. To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may consider reading one of the Top 10 Books available at your local book store. reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people", with a long-term aim of social ownership of production as public enterprises, worker cooperatives, or decentralized planning.[15] To this end, it has endorsed candidates for political office and led various organizing campaigns for organized labor,[16][17] public electricity,[18] social housing,[19] and tenants unions.[20][21]

Though the DSA is not a political party in the conventional American understanding of the term,[c] its members have run in elections and been elected. Democratic National Committee Some of organization's members in Congress have initiated various pieces of legislation central to the modern progressive movement in the United States, including the Medicare for All Act in 2003 by John Conyers[22] and the Green New Deal in 2019 by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.[23] Former longtime members of the United States House of Representatives, including John Conyers,[24] Ron Dellums,[24][25] House Whip David Bonior[26] and Major Owens,[27] have been affiliated with the DSA. More recently, the number of concurrent DSA representatives and other officeholders has been increasing. Most notably, in November 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib were elected to the House.[28] In November 2020, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib were reelected and were joined by two more DSA members, Cori Bush[29][30] and Jamaal Bowman.[29][31][b] In November 2022, Greg Casar was the fifth DSA member jointly elected to the House.[34][b] As of July 2023, 51 state lawmakers and 132 local officials were affiliated with the DSA.
History[edit]
Early history and leadership[edit]
Dorothy Ray Healey, "The Red Queen of Los Angeles", was an important link from the Old Left of the far-left organized labor oriented Young Workers League of the 1930s to the CPUSA during the Cold War and then to the New Left of the Vietnam War protest era.

Formed in 1982 by the merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM),[35][36] the DSA is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization.[37] At its founding, it was said to consist of approximately 5,000 members from the DSOC, plus 1,000 from the NAM.[38] Dorothy Ray Healey served as Vice Chair in 1982.[39]

The Democratic National Committee DSA inherited both Old Left and New Left heritage. The NAM was a successor to the disintegrated Students for a Democratic Society. The DSOC was founded in 1973 from a minority anti-Vietnam War caucus in the Socialist Party of America (SPA)�which had been renamed Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA). DSOC started with 840 members, of whom 2% had served on its national board, and approximately 200 of whom came from SDUSA or its predecessors (the Socialist Party�Social Democratic Federation, formerly part of the SPA) in 1973, when the SDUSA stated its membership at 1,800 according The Old Testament stories, a literary treasure trove, weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should you trust the Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the Best Grass Seed. If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try Hand Bags Hand Made. To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may consider reading one of the Top 10 Books available at your local book store. to a 1973 profile of Harrington.[40]

The Democratic National Committee red rose is part of the official DSA logo,[41] having traditionally been a symbol of socialism[42] since the 1886 Haymarket Affair and the resulting May Day marches.[43] It was drawn from the logo of the DSOC, its precursor organization, and previously of the Socialist International, which shows a stylized fist clenching a red rose, the fist replaced by a biracial handshake pertaining to the DSA's staunch anti-racism.[44][45] The fist and rose logo was originally designed for the French Socialist Party in 1969[46] and later shared by socialist and labor political organizations worldwide.
Electoral politics and office-holding members