Socialists Must Lead in 2028: Why DSA-LA Should get Ready for the presidential election
By Ben D., DSA-LA
AOC on a NYC-DSA Mass Call, December 2024
Every four years, the presidential election consumes nearly all of the political attention in the country. It shapes what millions of people talk about, what they believe is possible, and how they understand the conflicts dividing our society. For socialists, there is no substitute for intervening on that stage.
Bernie’s two campaigns proved this. His campaigns for president brought democratic socialism back into American political life and transformed DSA into a mass organization. Despite his loss, our efforts to elect Bernie opened the door for a new generation of socialist candidates and organizers who built DSA into a fighting political force. A decade after Bernie first ran for executive office, Zohran Mamdani was sworn into office as the Mayor of New York City, the most powerful municipal executive office in the country. Winning executive power has made socialist demands a tangible reality for millions of New Yorkers. Big wins come from big swings -- these races spread a socialist message about affordability, working-class power, and the failures of the political establishment to millions of people across the country who have never encountered socialist politics in practice.
We also learned the opposite lesson in 2024. Without a viable socialist candidate for president, we were left to comment on a national political debate largely defined as an entrenched failing Democratic establishment and a fascist alternative. Even our strongest interventions in this cycle like Uncommitted and our legislative pushes served only to agitate and expand our base, not meaningfully influence state power. This time it’s different. Socialists have a unique chance to organize millions of working people to elect a democratic socialist President.
We cannot afford to miss our opening in 2028.
The political opportunity is enormous. Trump is escalating his attacks on workers, immigrants, public institutions, democratic rights, our climate, and people across the globe. The Democratic establishment is crumbling into a moral husk incapable of organizing or wielding power, unwilling or unable to offer a compelling opposition. Millions of working people are looking for something different. A democratic socialist presidential campaign will turn this discontent into organization.
The working class in this country is already agitated and believes a better world is possible. Everyday, working people wage struggles to beat the odds, fighting to survive and better their communities under capitalism. We are no stranger to these fights, and recognize these struggles as interconnected. DSA is the working class political formation capable of organizing these struggles into one closed fist, capable of winning power. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most popular politicians in the country, and already one of the leading likely candidates for the presidential nomination. Her upset win in 2018 made her a standard-bearer for democratic socialism to most of the working class of this country. She needs to run for president, and win- but cannot do that without a mass democratic, working class organization.
DSA is now 120,000 strong, walking into the next Congress with an expanded socialist caucus and having won electoral races up and down the ballot. Our movement is resurgent, and we can’t take this moment for granted. This presidential cycle is a once in a generation opportunity where tens of millions of workers can be politicized and organized at once. This moment is existential for DSA, existential for the United States, and existential for the world. If we fail to seize it, our movement could be left behind by the forces of history. Socialists must lead.
The opportunity is greatest here in Los Angeles. California will be one of the earliest and most consequential states in the Democratic primary, as our Primary will be in March 2028. We are one of the states presidential campaigns and primary voters are most focused on. No socialist can win the nomination without building a serious campaign here, and that campaign cannot be assembled in the final months before Election Day. A socialist campaign is not simply getting out the vote before Election Day, but an effort to politicize millions, to build the party, and unite the socialist and labor movements. These victories are only possible with long term advanced planning and organization. Bernie Sanders was able to win California in the 2020 primary because the movement identified our state as key very early, giving the campaign and DSA time to organize in neighborhoods and workplaces, building community alongside the campaign, over a year in advance. Because of this, Bernie was able to win enormous margins among working class voters and DSA-LA grew rapidly, not just in numbers, but in diversity and organizing experience as well.
DSA-LA can play a decisive role in building the presidential campaign we need. We can recruit a slate of socialist and labor candidates who will run alongside the presidential campaign, winning power at all levels of government simultaneously. We can expand our base to tens of thousands more socialist voters. We can train hundreds of new organizers in our movement. We can organize alongside our union siblings and in our workplaces, using the presidential election to politicize workers. We can expand beyond our current activist core, particularly among Spanish-speaking workers and the broader multiracial working class of Los Angeles.
The top of the ticket matters. It matters because AOC can give these candidates a national platform and a clear democratic socialist political pole to identify with. In turn, our downballot candidates can boost the presidential campaign’s roots in neighborhoods, unions, and working-class institutions. Instead of treating the presidential election as a distraction from local organizing, we can use it to connect every level of our work into a single, coherent socialist wave. In the 2028 cycle, more workers than ever will be open to our message, willing to be organized, and ready to jump into political action for the long-haul.
DSA LA waiting to start organizing for AOC until our next chapter convention would get us involved far too late to be sufficiently impactful. The primary will be in full swing, and the chapter would be reduced to sending canvassers to field offices as an auxiliary force, rather than shaping the campaign, building our chapter, and deepening our base for the long-term. Instead, we must act now. Should DSA-LA members pass this resolution, in one year’s time the chapter will already have a functional campaign, a trained field operation, a mapped political base, relationships with union members across Los Angeles, and a serious slate of downballot candidates. We will already be making the case within the labor movement for an independent working-class political intervention in 2028. We will already be demonstrating to AOC that there is an organized grassroots movement prepared to support her if she runs.
DSA-LA cannot decide the national endorsement question alone, and this resolution does not suggest doing so without the buy-in of national leadership and chapters across the country. However, time is of the essence. This priority campaign prepares us to participate meaningfully in a national endorsement question, make our voice heard as the second largest chapter and an early primary state, and act effectively should DSA endorse AOC. In the predicted absence of a national membership poll on the question of a presidential endorsement, chapter-level organizing will play the clearest role in demonstrating rank-and-file support for this endeavor. Organizing and moving at the chapter level is the only way DSA-LA members can make clear the strength of our convictions in this endorsement process.
That makes the question before us concrete: will one of the largest DSA chapters, located in one of the most important primary states in the country, begin organizing now, as political protagonists, or will we wait for history to act upon us?
Now is the time to be ambitious. Winning the presidency, massively growing our base, uniting the socialist and labor movements, and running a united slate of socialists takes planning and organization, a united chapter, and a priority campaign commitment. This campaign touches and unites every aspect of chapter work from supporting the rank and file labor movement to fighting ICE and fascism to winning an arms embargo, and it gives the chapter a comprehensive strategy for the next two years.
Early organization is not simply about having more time. It determines who shapes the political contours of the campaign. When DSA enters early, we help define the program, develop cadre organizers as campaign leaders, build independent infrastructure, and establish socialism as the political center of the campaign. Entering late means DSA-LA will be reduced to volunteering for a campaign whose direction has already cemented without our participation. Early engagement is the path to becoming a leading force rather than a junior partner.
This is how DSA approached Bernie’s campaigns in 2015 and 2019. Members did not wait until every uncertainty had been resolved. They organized Draft Bernie and Labor for Bernie efforts, built support inside unions, trained new leaders, and prepared the organization for the campaign that was coming. That work dramatically expanded both the socialist movement and our chapter’s reach. It’s not an overstatement to say our chapter and our organization were built on those efforts. So many of our core organizers came out of those campaigns, brought in because DSA was the organization on the ground doing the work for Bernie when no one else was. DSA became their political home. We can do the same, if not better, for thousands more who will be activated by the 2028 campaign.
The coming opportunity is even greater. We have more members, more elected officials, deeper relationships with labor, and far more electoral experience than we did before Bernie’s first campaign. But none of that capacity will matter if we fail to organize it in time.
Presidential elections do not come around often. A viable democratic socialist candidate comes around even less often. We have a world to win, and we cannot win it by waiting for history to tell us when to begin.
Vote yes on Towards 2028: Run, AOC, Run. Let’s start building now.
