GW NPC Statement on 9/13 NPC Meeting and 2028 Presidential Endorsement Process

By GW’s elected representatives to DSA’s National Political Committee: Ashik S., Eleanor B., Frances G., Cara T., and Kareem E.

This Sunday, Groundwork’s NPC members voted to have the NPC decide on a potential presidential endorsement in March 2027. From the beginning, our goal has been to take the process by which DSA endorsed Bernie Sanders for the election in 2020 — an advisory all-member poll followed by an NPC vote — and strengthen it, offering more avenues for discussion and a better eye for how our members could collectively make the most of our intervention as an independent organization. This goal was undercut in July when the NPC narrowly voted to remove any possibility of an all-member poll. While we didn’t get a preferred outcome there, we continued advocating for elements of the process that would put DSA in the strongest position to intervene in the election cycle. When the question was taken up again this past weekend, we elected to stand by precedent and by our position as best we could and supported having the NPC vote on who to endorse, just like DSA did in early 2019.

In doing so, we did not back a novel proposal to host a special convention in May 2027, that would simultaneously delay a decision, and require every chapter in the country to call snap national delegate elections over a single question. Instead, we voted to keep an NPC decision because we believe this is the process by which we can build the most buy-in in the organization, increase democracy, and empower our members. In our experience, what makes campaigns democratic is giving members the opportunity to meaningfully engage in and shape, rather than tail, a campaign. The ‘DSA Difference’ is much more than endorsement forums or our droves of volunteers. It is also the participatory democracy within our campaigns, themselves experiments in the socialist democracy we are building towards. Time and organization are our greatest considerations here. DSA needs to be able to intervene in the Democratic primary early and often. There is a listlessness to American politics right now; the alternative to Trump’s fascism is growing on the horizon but its shape is as of now unclear. DSA has an opportunity and a responsibility to fill that void. But if we allow the primary to begin in earnest while we stay silent, we fail in our historic duty. We deny ourselves the ability to set and mold the narrative and begin to organize millions of people — and worse yet, we turn that ability over to other, less socialist, less principled forces.

The endorsement process that was approved on Sunday encourages chapters to deliberate and vote on endorsement decisions, which can be aggregated to inform the NPC’s decision. We would have preferred a unified poll, and laid out our concerns after the July NPC meeting about the challenges of aggregating many chapter inputs without standardized polling that is accessible to all members. But we appreciate that there is still opportunity for meaningful chapter feedback baked into the process, and encourage all chapter leaders to make these as accessible as possible to all members. 

The NPC had consensus on core elements of how a DSA for President 2028 campaign should be carried out — affirming that our campaign should be autonomous from the candidate's campaign in its politics and field operation, center DSA's position on the issues that matter in the election, and primarily focus on boosting our downballot DSA candidates running for office around the country, in strong alignment with the Workers Deserve More national program. We also commit to mass recruitment and political education events to bring new people into DSA and to orient new members towards plugging into DSA's work beyond elections. 

Delegates at the 2025 Convention recognized the duty of our organization to make a presidential intervention when we passed R33 and tasked the NPC to work towards a 2028 campaign. This NPC was elected by that same 2025 Convention to lead and represent the whole of our multi-tendency organization in the 2 years between our recurring conventions. We look forward to making the case to all members over the months ahead, and then moving decisively on the timeline that empowers DSA to lead.