The Democratic Socialists of America is drawing greater national attention as affiliated candidates win Democratic primaries, putting its calls to abolish the Senate, dismantle ICE, eventually eliminate police and prisons and establish public ownership of major corporations under increased scrutiny.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Democratic Socialists of America is moving from the political margins into a larger role in Democratic primary contests across the country, bringing new attention to an official platform that calls for sweeping changes to policing, immigration enforcement, private industry and the structure of the federal government.
DSA-affiliated candidates and politicians aligned with the organization have made significant electoral gains in 2026, including in New York City, where members and allies now hold substantial political influence, according to a Just the News report.
Socialist candidates have also won primaries in Colorado and Michigan, along with down-ballot races in Oregon, California, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Utah and Maryland.
The movement is being tested Tuesday in Wisconsin, a state President Donald Trump carried in 2024. DSA member Francesca Hong is leading polling for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
Hong has faced scrutiny over past social media posts, including statements supporting defunding police and calling for Thanksgiving to be canceled.
Her rise, along with victories by other DSA-aligned candidates, has placed the organization’s national program under closer examination.
Last month, DSA national co-chair Megan Romer was asked during a Fox News interview whether the organization supports abolishing the Senate, replacing the presidency and Supreme Court as currently structured, abolishing federal immigration enforcement, defunding the military and eventually eliminating police and prisons.
“yes,” Romer said when asked about provisions of the platform, while answering other questions with “true,” “yep” and “absolutely.”
The public appearances by DSA leaders have focused additional attention on the organization’s positions just months before the midterm elections.
Republicans are seeking to tie Democratic candidates to those proposals, while some establishment Democrats have expressed concern that socialist primary victories could create problems in competitive general-election races.
Other traditional Democrats have similarly warned that socialist nominees could damage the party’s midterm prospects.
The debate has also highlighted ideological divisions within the DSA itself.
Just the News previously reported that some senior figures belong to internal caucuses that explicitly identify with Marxist politics and advocate replacing capitalism with communism.
Romer, for example, is a member of the DSA’s Red Star caucus, which states that its ultimate political objective is the overthrow of capitalism in the United States and eventually the achievement of communism.
The DSA’s newly released national program provides a detailed account of the organization’s current objectives.
One of its major priorities is titled “End Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity.”
The platform calls for reducing the authority and funding of law enforcement as intermediate steps toward eliminating the existing police and prison systems.
“Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor,” the DSA program states.
Hong expressed a similar position in 2020.
“I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police,” she posted at the time.
She has since sought to distance herself from some of her earlier social media statements as she campaigns for governor.
Other DSA-associated candidates have faced similar scrutiny.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, a New York City candidate tied to the organization, faced attention over deleted social media posts supporting the abolition of police, prisons and national borders, along with the seizure of private property and nationalization of industries.
“A world without borders—just like a world without prisons or police—is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward,” Chevalier wrote on Twitter, now X, in September 2021.
Immigration enforcement represents another major component of the DSA program.
The organization calls for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ending detentions and deportations and providing legal status to immigrants regardless of their current immigration status.
DSA organizers have been involved in nationwide demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration policies, working alongside a coalition of left-wing organizations, some of which have received funding from China-based billionaire Neville Roy Singham.
“End ICE detention and deportations and punish federal agents’ brutality. Legalize migration, grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status, provide a path to citizenship for all permanent residents, and end visa caps and quotas,” the DSA program states.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a DSA member, has repeatedly advocated abolishing ICE.
“As [New York’s] mayor, I firmly believe that ICE should be abolished,” Mamdani said. “I will not sit here beside you and proclaim the only way to respond to [immigration] is an agency that I’m older than.”
Hong has taken the same position.
“Abolishing ICE isn’t radical — it’s good policy,” she wrote on social media in January.
The DSA program goes well beyond individual policy changes and proposes fundamentally restructuring the federal government.
The organization supports eliminating the Senate and transferring congressional authority to an expanded House of Representatives designed to provide more proportional representation.
DSA co-chairman Ashik Siddiqu defended the proposal during an interview on C-SPAN.
“The Senate is a very undemocratic institution,” Siddiqu said. “I talked a bit about democracy, a ‘small d’ democracy, and that’s really important to us. We want democratic representation of all people who live in this country.”
The platform also calls for replacing the presidency and Supreme Court as they currently operate.
Under the DSA proposal, executive and judicial panels would instead be “chosen by and subordinate to Congress,” concentrating federal authority within the national legislature.
Such changes would require major revisions to the Constitution.
Eliminating the Senate presents an especially high constitutional hurdle because Article V protects each state’s “equal Suffrage in the Senate.” An analysis of the proposal has said abolishing the chamber would likely require approval from every state.
The organization’s economic platform is similarly expansive.
DSA calls for the “public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries” in order “to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people.”
Its program ultimately advocates “the end of capitalism” as the country’s dominant economic system.
Some elements of public ownership are already being tested on a smaller scale in New York City under Mamdani.
His administration is developing city-run grocery stores that it says will offer prices approximately 30% below private competitors.
Critics of the program have warned that taxpayer subsidies could impose substantial costs while making it difficult for privately owned grocery stores to compete.
The DSA’s growing electoral success has therefore placed voters in several states in the position of evaluating candidates connected to an organization seeking not merely changes in individual policies but major alterations to U.S. political and economic institutions.
With affiliated candidates advancing through Democratic primaries in multiple states, proposals that once received relatively little attention outside socialist political circles are increasingly becoming part of the national midterm debate.
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