by DSA’s Surge In Recruits
Since the disastrous failure of the Democrats in the election, DSA has experienced a surge in new recruits. As radicalizing youth and workers face down the ever-increasing authoritarianism of Donald Trump DSA stands out as a channel for hope and resistance in contrast to the listless and defeated Democratic party.
Numbers aren’t fully updated, but already, growth since the election has been impressive! From the election through January 14, DSA added some 7,132 members. Over the same length of time before the election, we averaged approximately 1,200 members recruited. This represents a 5-6 times increase in new recruits, and assuming a constant rate of member quits, an even higher multiple of net member gains compared to the pre-election period. The bump in new members was most prominent immediately after the election, but it has shown some durability in the months following. Chapters across the country are holding record-setting general meetings. New organizing committees for new chapters are emerging. After four years of limited growth and increasing strain on a smaller group of active levers, DSA is suddenly experiencing a dramatic increase in capacity.
After four years of limited growth and increasing strain on a smaller group of active levers, DSA is suddenly experiencing a dramatic increase in capacity.
Other data has also revealed that over the past year 32 percent of new recruits came from NYC DSA alone, with another 8 percent coming from Hudson Valley DSA. Collectively, these two neighboring chapters represent 4 in 10 new recruits from 2024. It seems likely that New York DSA’s member growth is largely based on the higher profile of the chapter due to its elected officials, its presence in large population centers, and mobilizer, recruitment and onboarding best practices rather than some other “secret sauce.”
Channeling Energy; Building Infrastructure
These 7,000 new members have the potential to help expand our energy and capacity at a time where the left desperately needs to both respond to Trump’s attacks and to articulate a left alternative to the Democratic Party. It presents a real opportunity to catalyze and invigorate flagging or stalling work that fell away over the period of membership decline.
But DSA has enjoyed similar member growth in the past, and in the past, we haven’t always made full use of our new recruits. While some chapters run strong onboarding programs some of the time, this is in general the exception. Rather, in most chapters new recruits are mostly left to find their own way, navigating what are often decentralized structures knit together by a complex web of working groups, branches, commissions, and groupchats. Many recruits in the past have successfully found a productive way to contribute, but far more have fallen through the cracks, falling into inactivity and the ever-growing ranks of our paper membership.
It does not have to be this way! We owe it to our new recruits to not waste any of their new energy or excitement, and instead make sure to funnel it into the productive channels which can maximize the impact of our entire organization.
What is clear is that, to seize the moment, DSA needs to embrace the programs which are proven to provide clear political direction, maximize engagement, continue our recruitment surge, and bring the fight to Trump and his billionaire friends
Over the next year, our chapters and our national organization need to lay the foundation for the party infrastructure which will be needed in 2026 to wage a successful intervention into the midterms, and set the stage for a break.
Firstly, this means redoubling our efforts at new member orientation. At a national level, this means establishing some baseline of unity around our politics with a program that can be used for messaging, agitation, and education. Even before convention, we can and should be setting the target that every new recruit attends a new member orientation, and ideally also set the target that each new member is invited to schedule a 1on1 with a leading chapter member.
National DSA can help with this by better advertising our national new member orientations, and by creating and distributing a simple “new member orientation how-to-guide” that chapters can quickly adopt without needing a training to understand.
Pointing members towards priority committees, campaigns engaged in active work, and upcoming events is pivotal in taking that first, initial connection with DSA and turning it into a long-lasting commitment.
Just as we take quick action to mobilize new members, we should take the same attitude towards our inactive “paper” members. Each chapter should set at least the minimum target of attempting one call to every inactive member, and those with capacity can more ambitiously aim to actually speak on the phone with as many inactive members as possible. Talking to inactive members should be conducted with the aim of inviting them to participate in a way that appeals to their unique interests and capacities.
Motivated by the cause of battling against Donald Trump and preparing for the campaigns of 2026, we can increase the participation of our new and existing members, building out our active membership and cadre which, come next year, can help to drive our cadre-campaigns to victory.
Using Capacity to Build Capacity
Recruitment during a membership surge can feel like trying to fill up a bucket in a rainstorm. For once, the problem is that more people are interested in our work than our current capacity can meet.
Chapter leaders have a responsibility to adapt to the moment they’re organizing in, and right now, we can use our new capacity to bolster efforts which will, in turn, recruit even more people, and do so on a more deliberate, and sustainable basis.
Most chapters already have a diverse web of ongoing projects, and new and newly-engaged comrades should be plugged into these working groups, commissions, and committees. The strategies for these specific working groups is beyond the scope of this article. But in addition, DSA chapters should emphasize two key organizing tactics.
First, especially during the warmer months, chapters should set the target of “tabling” once a week in key areas in their locale, especially in the neighborhoods. Tabling, with leaflets and pamphlets on national and local issues is a longstanding method to engage with our communities, build our profiles, and identify new recruits. It increases DSA’s visibility, gives us a chance to use and distribute the great materials and pamphlets we’ve created over the years, and helps us lay the groundwork for organizing electoral campaigns in the same district.
Moreover, the skills learned by comrades organizing and participating in tabling are essential ways to build up the confidence of members, and train them in key aspects of organizing. New members will learn data collection, memorize scripts, and practice expressing our positions to the man-on-the-street, and most importantly the all-important practice of overcoming the fear of publicly identifying as a socialist. In-between talking with passers-by, new comrades attending tabling sessions have time to speak in depth with more seasoned comrades, who can help answer questions, develop their politics, and strengthen interpersonal relations. Tabling allows us to grow our canvassing muscles in advance of 2026, building out a layer of lead organizers and participants who will be prepared in advance of the coming electoral work.
The skills learned by comrades in organizing and participating in tables are essential ways to build up the confidence of members, and train them in key aspects of organizing.
Second, DSA chapters should establish local communications teams to dramatically scale up our forward facing work. This work should be directed at driving new, excited young people towards DSA. Through posters and flyering we can reach people who don’t otherwise engage with our politics. In Portland, we have found extensive success simply advertising our events on telephone poles.
As we bring members into our events, we should be preparing to talk to them about our most exciting ongoing work, and the basics of our ideas. This is why chapters should look to produce short, zine-length pamphlets advertising the most exciting aspects of their organizing. This is especially vital during our protest interventions, where we will come into contact with potentially hundreds of interested people and only have a few seconds to give them information on our politics.
Outside of physical media, communications committees should be focused constantly on building up a strong social media presence, not only on Twitter, but also Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Chapters with the capacity to do so should consider developing video teams and even podcasts.
Another key forum for broadcasting our message to a larger audience is by holding town halls, forums and other public facing events. In the absence of leadership from elected officials, DSA chapters can step into the void of educating people about what’s happening to the economy, society and national and local politics. While they initially seem daunting, putting together a town hall actually tends not to take an impossible amount of work. Especially with floods of new members, such events are well within our capacity.
Lastly, chapters can look to build up their own local publications. Publications including The Washington Socialist and Working Mass have shown the value of developing local media outlets, which can weigh in on local issues, counter corporate narratives, highlight ongoing chapter work, and build good-will in the community. DSA national can help this development by providing centralized resources and support, and create a network for cross-posting and skills-sharing. Many new recruits already bring the necessary skills to contribute productively to local publications, and need only political direction, management, and encouragement; our comrades in Massachusetts relay that, since the election, a full ⅓ of the 18 articles posted by Working Mass were penned by comrades who joined after the election. And similar to tabling, the work of building out a publication — from writing, to graphic design, to social media — is preparatory work which trains a team of communication specialists in advance of 2026.
By redoubling our efforts to engage, mobilize, and organize new and existing members, and channeling them into our existing projects as well as into regular tabling and local publications, we can build out the volunteers necessary to launch successful campaigns in 2026.
Seizing The Moment
It is obvious that the primary focus of the majority of comrades, especially new comrades, over the coming months will be on organizing to resist Trump’s attacks on workers, trans people, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. Clearly the immediate political task is to organize for mass resistance to these efforts.
Through campaigns like local Trans Rights Bodily Autonomy efforts, abortion clinic defense, immigrant rights organizing, and anti-racist protests, DSA can not only join, but help lead opposition to Trump in the absence of a real fightback from the Democrats.
But we have also learned over the last 8 years that resistance is only half of our task. The other half is channeling this resistance into a positive alternative. And so, in tandem with the task of building mass fightback to Trump, seizing the moment means DSA must fully embrace the politics and operational requirements of party building.
We learned over the last 8 years that resistance is only half of our task.
The marked success of NYC DSA and Hudson Valley DSA makes it clear that there is enormous potential in electoral campaigns. In many ways, electoral work is the most effective way to engage in mass work. We need to energetically expand these efforts, setting the target of launching at least 10 serious electoral campaigns for congress or other major offices in 2026. Moreover, these campaigns need to be centered on cadre-candidates and run as a unified national slate, with a joint program, a unified message, and a coordinated push to build up DSA. This approach, a “pre-party slate,” will not only help avoid the dead end of trying to realign the Democratic Party, but will also raise our profile not only in the participating chapters, but across the entire US. At a local level, chapters should look to build out principled electoral programs, and aim to turn anti-Trump energy into a socialist political base.
To begin this work, the NPC can start reaching out to large chapters to solicit interest, feedback and plans on electoral work. We can take a concerted effort to instigate electoral campaigns from national, visiting chapter GMs and electoral working groups, helping chapters draft model resolutions, and pooling and sharing resources to strengthen our already impressive electoral apparatus.
Running these campaigns will not only raise our profile, but they also provide a clear central outlet around which to engage, mobilize, and organize our new and existing membership into practical work. If DSA clearly embraces the task of launching a pre-party slate in 2026, as a stepping stone towards a more definite break with the Democrats in 2028, this effort will provide the overall political direction and unity needed in our organization to spur high levels of engagement and integrate our various areas of work in service of one overarching unified effort.
The specific steps to adopt this strategy and democratically select cadre candidates for a slate in 2026 have been addressed elsewhere, and these technical steps which our electoral-focused comrades must take are not the main focus of this article. But in summary, DSA chapters should immediately form exploratory committees to begin considering the political, legal, and logistical challenges of this endeavor, we should adopt a plan for a national slate at the 2025 convention, and at least 10 DSA chapters should select candidates internally and democratically, rather than choosing whether or not to endorse DSA members who have put themselves forward on an individual basis. You can read more about our vision for a 2026 slate here.
But beyond adopting and carrying out the electoral specifics of launching a slate, building successful campaigns requires the investment in the infrastructure of our chapters, building out our new member orientations, our recruitment work, our chapter press, and our overall chapter organizing work. It is this strengthening of infrastructure which will provide the capacity for our future electoral campaigns, as well as our ongoing organizing and advocacy in the fields of labor, housing, healthcare, ecosocialism, feminism, and more.
To seize the moment, we must adopt the strategy of a pre-party slate of 10 cadre candidates in 2026, and immediately begin building out the infrastructure which will be necessary to run 10 or more serious campaigns in our larger local chapters.
How the NPC can lead
Energy and enthusiasm are powerful organizers, but experienced comrades know that they are not sufficient to build out and sustain lasting organizing work. Rather, implementing the programs outlined above will require a serious amount of work from our local and national leaders and our staff.
So what can we do? The most important role for our national leadership is to give strong guidance to our members. As the Trump administration unleashes a flurry of right wing policies we need a robust response. That includes strong comms leadership, quick responses to Trump’s worst policies, and fighting for an active role of leadership in protest campaigns that will almost inevitably emerge. We’ve already started some of this work, with our co-chairs worrying op ed’s in major news outlets, appearing on podcasts, and traveling to DC to protest the inauguration, but there’s a lot more we can do.
Just like DSA can take the initiative for popular organizing at a local level, at a national level, DSA messaging needs to fill the void left by the passivity of the Democrats.
Another vital question for DSA is how best to utilize our staff. In recent years, frustration over bureaucracy has developed into an anti-staff sentiment within the organization. But staff are not in any sense a bad thing. Bad models and bad incentives result in staff trying to replace member activity and leadership. But staff can also work as the strongest allies to the elected leadership, working hard to increase their engagement in DSA, and expanding participation in organizing spaces in which the members set the goals and agendas. Bad staff are a problem of a bad model, not a problem of staff in general. DSA can learn a lot by studying the staffing best-practices of the more progressive, member-driven unions. In the best union models, along the lines of the McAlevey school, staff and members engage dialectically, with staffers working to increase, not replace, member participation.
To achieve this, the NPC needs to give our staffers clear direction and guidance. In some of our largest chapters, with our increased capacity, we can also begin to think about the possibility of hiring local staff. While expensive, the dramatic increase a staffer can provide in an otherwise volunteer space cannot be discounted.
What should we be using staff for? Assisting the NPC and GDC in setting up a robust program of recruitment, mobilization and internal development. With our flood of new members, it’s vital we try to convince them of core parts of our ideas. Holding monthly or bi-monthly membership forums and debates, expanding our NPC bulletins to include consistent campaign reports, membership statistics, and debate contributions, and of course continuing the expansion of Democratic Left and Socialist Forum.
In Portland, we found that new members enthusiastically took any resources and materials we could give them. Documents like the Workers’ Deserve More program were handed out as fast as we could print them.
DSA General Meetings across the country are filling up with members who need direction and encouragement. By putting forward some basic materials, and a strong plan to begin running candidates in 2026, we can give that energy real direction, and dramatically influence the trajectory of new members.
Make 2025 The Year of Party Building
2026 can be the year that DSA launches a coordinated slate of at least 10 electoral candidates – real DSA cadre members, veteran organizers with experience in the fields of labor, housing, environmental, healthcare, anti-imperialism, and feminism and queer rights.
But in order to make 2026 the year of the pre-party slate, we must make 2025 the year of the party-builder. Investing in our internal organizing, expanding our publications, tabling regularly in our neighborhoods, and building up powerful national and local growth and development plans to facilitate this work – these steps will channel tremendous energy into our existing campaigns and prepare the teams necessary for 2026.
Let’s make 2025 the year of the party builders!
Invest in internal organizing! Organize all new and inactive members!
Table weekly in our communities! Prepare our canvassing teams in advance!
Launch new local publications! Revive the socialist press!
Prepare DSA for 2026! Prepare now for the 2026 pre-party slate!
Sarah Milner
Sarah Milner, she/her, is a rank and file union organizer and member of Portland DSA and Portland State University YDSA. She co-chairs the Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Campaign. She has previously been the co-chair of PSU YDSA and of Portland DSA’s Electoral Working Group. She spent two terms on the chapter Steering Committee. She is a member of the Steering Committee of Reform & Revolution caucus.
