The Democratic Socialists of America is pairing an expanding electoral operation with a long-running strategy that encourages members to organize from within workplaces and unions in sectors including education, health care and logistics.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.

The Democratic Socialists of America is entering the final stretch of the 2026 midterm cycle with more than 120,000 members, hundreds of endorsed candidates and a labor strategy that seeks to build political influence through workplaces and unions as well as elections.

The approach, known within DSA as the “rank-and-file strategy,” explicitly encourages members to work in industries where they can participate in union organizing, develop workplace leadership and connect labor campaigns with the organization’s broader political objectives. DSA’s own materials describe teaching, nursing, logistics, transit, building trades and government employment as examples of potentially strategic work.

A Newsmax report on DSA’s labor strategy drew renewed attention to the effort as DSA’s membership and electoral presence have expanded considerably.

DSA reported reaching 120,000 members on July 4, up from about 24,000 in July 2017. The organization said in August that its membership remained above 120,000 across nearly 200 chapters nationwide.

Its electoral footprint has expanded alongside that growth.

An August analysis by Brookings Institution researchers Elaine Kamarck, Riana Mahtani and Gabriel Kraemer identified 282 candidates who had received endorsements from DSA organizations during the 2026 cycle through Aug. 12. Because DSA operates through decentralized local chapters, just 29 of those candidates had national DSA endorsements, while the remainder were endorsed locally.

The candidates were concentrated heavily in Democratic-leaning areas. Ninety were in California and 21 were in New York, according to the Brookings analysis. Only 10 DSA-backed candidates had prevailed in races in jurisdictions with a Cook Partisan Voter Index below D+10, the researchers found.

“The scarcity of candidates and their lack of strong success rates overall make this look more like a skirmish than a war,” Kamarck wrote.

Kamarck also cited an analysis by Jim Kessler of the centrist Democratic organization Third Way concluding that self-identified conservatives outnumbered liberals nationally by approximately three to two in both 2024 and across the 2004-2024 period.

DSA’s labor organizing strategy, however, operates on a substantially longer timetable than an individual election cycle.

Its published guidance tells members who are choosing careers or considering job changes to evaluate “strategic workplaces” where they can organize alongside other socialists and workers. One DSA example describes local organizers identifying nursing, teaching, UPS, transit, building trades and city government as priority industries based on factors such as economic leverage, political influence, working conditions and opportunities to organize.

DSA describes the objective as rebuilding worker organization while establishing stronger ties between socialist activists and rank-and-file employees.

The organization says the strategy is broader than simply placing members in existing unions. Its published introduction states that organizing currently nonunion workers is also a central component and says members may eventually seek elected union positions or work with reform caucuses.

Critics have characterized that process differently.

Daily Signal senior investigative reporter Tyler O’Neil described the strategy in August as an effort to “infiltrate” labor unions and move them politically to the left. His article pointed to DSA materials encouraging members to enter strategic industries and use workplace organizing to connect labor campaigns with broader political movements. That characterization is O’Neil’s; DSA publicly describes its strategy as strengthening rank-and-file worker organization and developing socialist workplace leaders.

The strategy predates DSA’s current membership surge.

Labor writer Kim Moody published “The Rank and File Strategy” in 2000, arguing that socialists seeking to rebuild the labor movement should organize as workers rather than operate principally as outside supporters or professional union staff. Jacobin republished Moody’s work in 2018 as DSA membership was growing rapidly following Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns and Donald Trump’s first election.

From 2018 through 2021, the Young Democratic Socialists of America made rank-and-file labor organizing a priority. In 2020, YDSA developed programs aimed at preparing young members for organizing in areas including education, health care and logistics. Current YDSA training materials continue to identify those sectors as strategically significant.

Education has received particular attention.

A pamphlet jointly produced by DSA’s labor organization and YDSA, “Why Socialists Should Become Teachers,” explicitly encourages socialists to enter teaching because of the political, economic and community influence available to organized educators.

The document points to the 2018 West Virginia teachers strike as an example.

According to the pamphlet, socialist teachers pushed beyond a dispute centered solely on wages and health benefits by arguing that new revenue should come from increased taxes on corporations and extractive fossil-fuel industries. The authors presented the episode as an example of workers using collective bargaining and workplace organization to influence broader public-policy debates.

That interpretation of rank-and-file organizing has also generated disputes within the socialist movement itself.

A 2022 essay in the socialist publication Tempest argued that DSA’s implementation had increasingly reduced Moody’s broader theory to an emphasis on members obtaining union jobs. The author contended that questions involving worker political consciousness, union bureaucracy and independent rank-and-file power had been deemphasized.

Those internal debates have acquired greater practical significance since longtime DSA member Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York City.

Mamdani, who was born in Kampala, Uganda, represented Queens in the New York State Assembly before winning the 2025 mayoral election. He was sworn in Jan. 1, 2026, as New York City’s 112th mayor.

His relationship with organized labor developed substantially during the 2025 campaign.

District Council 37, New York City’s largest public employee union, represents about 150,000 members and 89,000 retirees. During the Democratic mayoral primary, DC 37 placed then-City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams first, Mamdani second and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie third on its ranked-choice endorsement slate.

After Mamdani won the Democratic nomination with approximately 56% of the final-round vote, DC 37 formally backed him for the general election in July 2025. The union said it would mobilize members through door-knocking, phone banking and other turnout efforts.

That relationship is now moving from electoral politics into collective bargaining.

DC 37’s existing citywide economic agreement expires Nov. 6, 2026. The union said earlier this year that it was preparing to negotiate a new agreement with the Mamdani administration, meaning the mayor will soon be negotiating wages, benefits and working conditions with one of the largest unions that supported his election.

Labor historian Joshua Freeman, professor emeritus at Queens College, previously described the distinction between supporting unions politically and negotiating with them as an employer.

“Most mayors inherit this challenge,” Freeman said. “There’s labor broadly, and then there are municipal unions with contractual relationships that have to be worked out. Mamdani hasn’t said very much about that side of labor at all, but his administration is going to have to deal with it.”

The administration has since taken additional steps involving organized labor, including extending a flexible-work program negotiated with DC 37 through May 2027.

While DSA’s labor strategy develops through workplaces, its chapters are also attempting to translate the organization’s policy priorities directly into ballot measures.

San Francisco provides one of the clearest current examples.

DSA’s San Francisco chapter helped advance Proposition I, the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act, for the Nov. 3 ballot. The measure would dedicate revenue from the city’s existing real estate transfer tax on property transactions valued at $10 million or more to affordable housing production and preservation, housing acquisition, rent relief and homelessness-prevention programs.

The underlying transfer tax was increased by voters in 2020 through a measure authored by former Supervisor Dean Preston, a DSA member. The 2026 proposal would legally dedicate revenue from high-value property transactions rather than leaving that money available for broader general-fund spending.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has joined the city’s police and firefighter unions in opposing Proposition I.

Lurie and the unions argue that dedicating approximately $120 million annually to housing would reduce the city’s ability to use that revenue for other priorities, including emergency services. The city’s controller estimated the measure would increase the general-fund deficit by roughly that amount annually.

The opposition described the proposal as creating a “massive, permanent hole” in San Francisco’s roughly $7 billion general fund.

Firefighters have also raised concerns about staffing.

“This measure would make it harder for us to respond quickly when San Franciscans call for help for years to come,” San Francisco Firefighters Local 798 President Sam Gebler said.

Proposition I supporters dispute that characterization, arguing that the transfer tax was originally promoted as a source of affordable-housing money and that the new measure would ensure the proceeds are used for that purpose. DSA-SF says the tax is projected to generate more than $100 million annually.

Lurie is instead supporting Proposition C, a separate charter amendment that would increase the city’s annual Housing Trust Fund contribution.

San Francisco currently contributes approximately $52 million annually to the fund. Proposition C would gradually raise the required contribution beginning in fiscal 2028-29 until it reaches at least $125 million, using formulas tied to general-fund revenue and growth in property values. The measure includes provisions allowing contributions to be frozen or reduced during significant fiscal stress.

The competing approaches have produced debate over how much municipal revenue should be permanently committed to a single policy area.

Chris Elmendorf, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and an analyst of housing policy, criticized the broader use of voter-mandated spending set-asides.

“People really like voting for things that give money to good stuff without considering trade-offs,” Elmendorf said.

DSA-SF and other Proposition I supporters argue that the housing crisis warrants dedicated funding and contend that the two housing measures could operate simultaneously. Supporters have said the measures together could ultimately direct roughly $250 million annually toward housing programs. Proposition I opponents counter that permanently earmarking general-fund revenue would reduce officials’ flexibility to respond to competing spending needs.

The broader debate over DSA’s relationship with organized labor also involves the considerable political resources controlled by major unions.

O’Neil’s Daily Signal analysis cited union political spending as one reason DSA’s labor strategy could have effects beyond individual workplaces. Federal Election Commission data compiled by ProPublica show that the Service Employees International Union’s Committee on Political Education reported approximately $14.48 million in independent expenditures during the 2020 election cycle.

For DSA, however, its own documents describe the rank-and-file strategy primarily as a means of developing workplace organization and connecting workers with campaigns extending beyond wages and benefits.

Its strategy guide says members should work with union activists, support reform caucuses, organize nonunion workplaces and connect labor organizations with campaigns such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

That makes the debate over the strategy partly a dispute over terminology and partly one over political purpose.

Critics including O’Neil characterize the placement of committed socialists in strategic union workplaces as an effort to redirect powerful labor institutions toward DSA priorities. DSA describes the same activity as rank-and-file organizing intended to strengthen unions, expand worker participation and build support for socialist political goals.

What is documented in DSA’s own materials is that the organization regards labor organizing as a long-term political strategy rather than simply an adjunct to candidate campaigns.

As DSA’s membership and electoral operation expand, the practical significance of that approach will increasingly depend on what its members accomplish inside workplaces, union elections and contract campaigns — including negotiations between Mayor Mamdani’s administration and DC 37 — as well as what DSA-backed candidates accomplish at the ballot box.

Original article