Towards 2028: A Proposal for a Critical Support Campaign (Part 2)

This article is the second part of R&R’s statement of position on the challenges and possibilities of an AOC presidential run in 2028. “Towards 2028” was written by Sarah Milner, R&R’s representative on DSA’s National Political Committee, and its fundamental political points are approved by the membership and Steering Committee of Reform & Revolution.

Reform & Revolution believes that the following elements are the fundamental structural and strategic building blocks of the “campaign of a new type” the political moment of 2028 will require. What we are fighting for is a truly “mass” campaign, a political instrument for working-class power which does not simply mobilize a constituency but endeavors to organize the masses. Such a campaign will both induce and require a significant political leap from DSA. It will be our greatest national undertaking to date. 

1. Kickoff rallies. DSA’s political message and volunteer base is distinct from the hired canvasser armies and paid volunteers corporate politicians rely on. Each step of the way, we can grow and increase capacity by galvanizing, energizing and training members. That’s why, as explained above, DSA should begin the campaign with energized, celebratory kickoff rallies in chapters across the country. These rallies should be advertised to members and the public, with local elected leaders, union leaders and prominent left celebrities there to give a roaring start to our campaign, mobilize members and volunteers, and capitalize on the new energy fast and early. As soon as an endorsement is made and a campaign begins, DSA members across the country will energetically begin signing up, while media eyes will turn towards DSA, and online conversations, both excited and skeptical, will rapidly consume our members and fellow travelers. Here, right from the start, we should begin with our own message. For us, election day is only the beginning, and DSA aims to go well beyond (and if necessary, against) any presidential candidate in order to fight for socialism. These rallies will be a chance to finetune and improve our critical support message in front of a more sympathetic audience, and a chance for chapters to open the campaign on their own terms, with the message and format that best suits local conditions. Tying it all together can be two calls: an organizing call for chapter leaders where the NPC can speak directly to members about our approach and strategy, and a massive online kickoff call, with celebrity guests like Oliver Larkin, Hasan Piker, Rashida Tlaib and Sara Nelson. 

2. “Workers Deserve More” petitions. DSA will struggle to unify our members and mobilize our full strength behind a specific candidate—even more so in the period where no candidates have announced they plan to run. Fortunately, there is already a unifying compromise effort which can allow us to begin to mobilize a 2028 campaigning project: a petition and campaign for presidential candidates to advance the demands in our Workers Deserve More petition. We can use this to mobilize our chapters, collect names and data, begin talking to the media about presidential campaigns, and hold public and internal events on a set of policies we are already unified around.  

3. Our own canvasses, phone banks and scripts. To carry out an independent campaign, we must… campaign independently! More precisely we must hold phone banks, canvasses, events and organizing separate from the official campaign, with our own scripts and talking points, and with materials written, drafted and edited in an accountable and democratic fashion. Ideally, we will also use these canvasses and phone banks as joint events for an ambitious downballot slate of candidates. Independent canvassing and phone banking with our own scripts is vital because we must seek to recruit, constantly, to DSA and to our ongoing organizing work. This recruitment has a higher purpose than just growing our organization, although that alone would justify it. A left presidency only has a hope of succeeding if it is backed up by an aggressive, well-organized mass movement of ordinary workers capable of persistently mobilizing to advance key legislative and political priorities. We absolutely cannot count on a candidate to do this. The campaign for the election is just the prelude to the far more important campaign after the election. Canvasses should be targeted towards working class neighborhoods, and scripts should be written and designed to highlight key issues for workers such as the cost of living, inequality, underemployment, low pay, job conditions and safety, and ICE attacks on immigrants.

4. Orienting towards organized labor. Conducting an independent campaign means organizing our class. And we know that the leverage of workers is primarily at the workplace. The presidential campaign will coincide with the drive towards a 2028 May Day general strike. After the strike, whatever its scale, millions of progressive and left-wing workers will be ready for the next step. They will show up at union meetings looking for answers. Meanwhile, workers without unions will be looking to the May Day organizers for inspiration and a way forward. An exciting presidential campaign which brings working-class concerns into the mainstream is the perfect opportunity for DSA to take the fight to the capitalist class, and to radicalize the unions and their political involvement. When we speak of bringing the campaign into the labor movement, we need to raise expectations well beyond what we are used to from the last few decades. Of course, we include the absolute minimum, which is securing official union endorsements. But we cannot stop at getting the union officialdom to pay lip service to a progressive candidate! We must use the opportunity to galvanize members around the economic and political issues our campaign focuses on, and to advance our rank-and-file union reform efforts in the process. 

This also provides an opportunity to connect with labor activists who are involved in liberal-labor efforts such as Labor For Democracy, devoted to fighting voter suppression and forestalling a far-right takeover. As socialists, we know that their heart is in the right place, but that their meek advocacy for “democracy” will not suffice: there is no way to halt the far-right without a militant labor movement that is ready to shut down industries with mass strikes, that is, to stop the flow of profit to the capitalists. We must organize socialist job fairs and other events to politicize the influx of new members. Done right, our campaign can become a vast worker organizing project. This is a golden opportunity to expand DSA’s currently limited working-class base. Organizing regular National Labor Commission and Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee calls and training events, carrying “how to organize your workplace” literature during our canvasses, and pointing new members towards local Labor Working Groups is one part of this effort. Finally, DSA must conclusively commit to defending workers’ rights and power well beyond what our candidate campaigns for. While AOC will surely have a platform filled with key pro-worker policies, DSA must commit to a socialist labor strategy, based on the precept that only we, the working class, can set ourselves free. 

We cannot forget that, in a shameful yet entirely expected move, AOC voted with her party, the Democrats, to bar rail workers from striking in November 2022. As president, with the NLRB under her control, both the prospects and danger of her position would be immense. This is why DSA should commit to a labor program before AOC runs, preparing to relentlessly support a slate of pro-labor policies and pledging to oppose any state repression of organized labor, even under an AOC administration. This explicit and public commitment is a prerequisite to what will be the greatest test of our movement: whether we can avoid the pitfalls of liberal and reformist politics, while taking advantage of the mass politicization that they set into motion.

5. Committing to anti-imperialism. Any sworn president becomes the US imperialist-in-chief, presiding over the vast U.S. imperial network of military bases, alliances, and active conflicts. We are trying to elect AOC into that position. Therefore, DSA should take three steps to preemptively confront the inevitable contradictions that would arise if she wins. First, during the campaign we should aggressively highlight foreign policy, seeking to turn the campaign into a referendum on ending U.S. interventions abroad, stopping the genocide in Gaza, and slashing military spending. In our outward-facing messaging, foreign policy is where we can distinguish ourselves most sharply from the progressive candidates we support. We should underline the necessity of building a mass movement to resist war and imperialism, and explain that if elected, AOC will be placed in a position that places enormous pressure on her to let the imperialist machine continue as usual. In short, we must oppose imperialist war, even if it means opposing our own endorsed candidates. 

6. Committing to abolition. Unlike with Zohran Mamdani, where our understanding of his positions on policing was defined by wishful thinking, with AOC there should be no illusions. The police system in the U.S. will remain largely intact unless there is a unified popular protest movement, organized with relatively clear actionable demands. In the event of such a protest movement, we can expect AOC to act like all Democrats did in 2020: using the police and national guard to repress popular dissent.

7. Running a downballot slate. The greatest opportunity posed by a 2028 electoral campaign of this type is not merely to win the presidential election. Our eyes should be cast towards the political system in general—to fundamentally remake America’s political landscape. In 2016, no one was ready for the upsurge and opportunity we are seeing today. Socialists are already winning victory after victory in primary elections. We must meet 2028 with the expansive goal of doubling our congressional representation, electing at least one socialist senator, building socialist blocs in city councils and state legislatures across the country, picking up mayoralities and governor’s mansions, and defending all of our incumbent candidates. Governing from the White House will require our effort in the primaries to defeat the corporate wing of the Democratic party. It will require shattering the taboo against challenging incumbents. It will require DSA to ignore even appeals from our own candidates against running primaries. DSA should take on high-profile targets like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, as well as contesting major open seats. Our goal should be to have a socialist slate running downballot in every state, with the standardization of canvassing best practices and a dual canvass setup channeling those excited about the presidential campaign into an army of canvassers and fundraisers to sweep a socialist wave into office. If ever there was a year to be ambitious, it is 2028.

8. Owning our data. Given the vital importance of growing a durable mass movement from our canvassing and campaigning, it is a critical necessity that we collect and use our own data from our canvasses and other activities. This is where compliance work becomes most vital. We must guarantee that DSA uses its own tools and resources, while strictly adhering to election law, so that we can use it to grow DSA and develop new contacts. The data we collect from campaigning, especially if we hold repeated “deep canvasses” will be a key tangible measure of our door-to-door work.

9. A robust communications plan. DSA has learned many painful lessons in public messaging (or “comms”) amid our flurry of electoral victories. Of course, a presidential campaign will be our biggest comms test in our history. DSA needs a slate of public representatives who can faithfully represent DSA and its program. So far, this has mainly been our co-chairs, but we need more: an NPC-selected team of talented and media-trained cadre members from various DSA chapters who are well-versed in our talking points and able to field aggressive questioning. We need our National Communications Committee to produce high quality political content for social and traditional media: podcasts, short and long form videos, graphics and interviews. Additionally, the Democratic Left editorial board should help chapters and leaders share perspectives and experiences from across the country. Finally, we need our own distinctive talking points. These should be democratically decided, and if possible even approved in broad outline by DSA National Convention, and then updated as needed by the NPC. These must include a clear and incisive message of critical support and how it fits into our broader vision. Chapter leaders should be regularly assisted by the NPC to carry out local messaging work through our regional organizers and NCC. All together, a nationwide communications plan will be second only to our canvasses and phone banks in bringing our message to the masses, and bringing masses of new members into DSA. 

10. Running a strong campaign. Critical support won’t work unless it is part of a relentless campaign: the sort of energized effort that makes our mass membership utterly indispensable to the campaign itself. DSA has a unique mass capacity to mobilize a dedicated volunteer base that can wield a transformative ground game. This section outlines a plan to run the most ambitious campaign in DSA’s history.

11. Full member outreach. Once an endorsement is made, DSA should begin a massive push to organize and mobilize our membership and contact lists. Here is the ideal chance to contact lapsed members, to connect to each chapter’s entire contact list, and to launch a massive messaging push connecting to a sign-up form where members can list the actions they are interested in supporting the campaign with. This will allow us to grow our membership lists and arm each chapter with a strong, updated list of volunteer data.

12. Town Halls. Before and after these rallies, we can continue to galvanize popular opinion by showing off what makes DSA different from almost all other major political forces: our commitment to deliberation and democracy. DSA can hold town halls and debates talking about local and nationwide socialist strategy, our political approach, the policies we hope and expect a candidate to advance, and our campaigning plans. Just like our kickoff rallies, these town halls will be a chance to give energy and direction to members, and to get new recruits, activists and volunteers excited and involved, while articulating our own specific socialist message.

13. Begin canvassing early. DSA has a major advantage over traditional campaigns, which are constrained by tight timelines, funds and prioritization. We have the ability to start our work immediately, beginning a mobilization effort in every state and city with a DSA chapter. This gives us a series of advantages: we can train up field leads, collect more data, run deep canvasses, develop a long list of volunteers, and help shape the campaigning and messaging before anyone else even arrives in our states. DSA members will have the chance to spend months relentlessly criticizing corporate Democrats before the candidates even set foot in many states, defining the tone and narrative of the campaign.

14. Debate watch parties and social events. As the campaign ramps up, energy and focus will increase, and more and more people will look for places to meet and talk to other socialists. Socials, fundraisers, and debate watch parties are a key opportunity to connect to volunteers and explain to them our ideas and goals as an organization. Debate watch parties have the added benefit of being an excellent place to talk to members in a nuanced way about the issues with AOC’s answers, as well as their strengths, and to offer live-action training for how DSA members could respond to the hostile press.

15. Canvass trips to early states. One of the most incredible experiences of the 2020 Sanders campaigns was the “Bernie journey”—cohorts of volunteers traveling from across the country to talk to voters in early states. It aided the sense of energy, intensity, excitement and momentum, and built life-changing camaraderie among participants. If anyone has the experience, energy and dedication to make these kinds of travels, it’s DSA members. No one should have any illusions about the difficulty of winning South Carolina. Good! If we want to take on such a challenge, let us start with a real test of strength. Our members will learn more in a hard race, working to convince skeptical voters, than we could anywhere else. More than that: done right, these campaigns are a chance to build a durable, lasting base in the South by bringing an influx of new signups and volunteers into chapters in South Carolina and nearby states. Much as Oliver Larkin’s incredible campaign galvanized DSA members across the country, the first primary fight can be the catalyst for a transformative independent campaign.

16. Coordinated endorsements. DSA sits at the intersection of radical electoral politics, the left wing of the labor movement, and street protests. Working in tandem, chapter leaders in each of these fields can coordinate slates of endorsements, with membership outreach, announcement graphics and rallies, coordinated endorsement videos, canvasses, and joint appearances at campaign events. Most importantly, we can use these endorsements of AOC at a presidential level to unify and coordinate support for downballot races, using the galvanizing impact of the presidential election as a way to kick-start local left-wing political machines in as many cities as possible.

17. Protests and pressure campaigns. DSA’s goal should not merely be to win votes in one election for one candidate, but to turn the full primary into a relentlessly contested referendum on the future of American politics. This means we should be willing to deploy unprecedented tactics to pressure politicians to support our key positions and demands. DSA members should take the lead in organizing protests, rallies, events and petitions around key campaign planks. We should bombard so-called “progressives” who refuse to endorse AOC with phone calls, emails, letters, and even rallies and visits at offices. Naturally, the campaign itself will be inclined to take a far more diplomatic approach. We cannot let this dissuade us! As the radical, activist flank of such an effort, we must confront this election and the questions it engenders with exactly the level of intensity and urgency it merits: that is to say, with the widest possible campaign of mobilization and pressure.

18. Coordinated national campaign unifying all chapters and committees. To truly bring this campaign effort together, DSA needs a single unified strategy, clearly led by the NPC, developed in consultation with chapter and committee leadership, planning for how we will collectively coordinate all of our chapters and committees. This plan should include shared branding and messaging, unified recruitment and canvassing strategies, coordinated priorities, state by state and committee by committee targets and goals, and a system for check-ins and collective accountability. Properly coordinated, DSA’s 100,000 members can have an unprecedented impact on the election.

Building DSA through a 2028 campaign

Some comrades may raise the question of how all of this builds the party, of how DSA can avoid being swept off course by the frantic enthusiasm which often characterizes contradictory mass movements. A strong campaign with a strong message needs to be complemented by a clear, coherent effort to internally organize DSA so that it may sustainably recruit, organize, and integrate large numbers of new members while building up our chapters in a durable way. The two aspects of our intervention are inseparable from each other. Here is what we have to offer when it comes to politically and structurally preparing DSA for the tasks ahead.

1. Robust democratic deliberation before, during and after the campaign. DSA’s ability to mobilize members is directly related to our democratic process—the sense of ownership, collective responsibility and common buy-in that makes DSA different. There’s a big temptation to rush decisions, to try and lead from the top and expect members will follow. But a sustained process of deliberation, member feedback, and collective discussion is vital if we want the strongest possible campaign. Chapters will have different strategies to suit their local conditions. Caucuses will each have different analyses and priorities. If we even hope to synthesize these different priorities into a unified process it will take a sustained process of town halls, chapter discussions and votes, debates across caucus publications, and NPC strategizing.  

2. Kickoff at convention. In summer 2027, as the campaign begins to reach fever pitch, DSA will gather for our biannual convention. This convention will doubtless debate and vote upon a series of major decisions related to the presidential election. We should take advantage of the widespread gathering of members to prepare for an ambitious campaign kickoff: distributing materials to chapter members, holding fundraisers and parties, and capping off the convention with energizing speeches and public announcements to maximize the opportunity.

3. Concrete organizing targets for every chapter. After our national and local kickoffs, each chapter will begin a long-running campaign. Each chapter should set a series of concrete targets for the amount of canvasses and outreach, the amount of phonebanks and volunteers, and the amount of positive voter IDs. These goals should be organized in a local campaign timeline, created in the context of the broader national plan. 

4. Mass recruitment drive à la Fall Drive. An AOC presidential run will be an opportunity to grow DSA in unprecedented ways—to add a massive upsurge in energy to an already rapidly expanding organization. Done right, we can transform DSA, giving every chapter, every committee, every faction and every project capacity, funding and energy they could previously only have dreamed of. But to get to that point, we need to hit the ground running. DSA’s 2025 Fall Drive was an exhilarating success, helping us eventually reach 100,000 members and grow across the country. During the 2028 campaign, we can go even further: not just a Fall Drive, but a year-long recruitment push complete with strategies, timelines and targets for each chapter.

5. Preparing our chapters for an influx of members. As new members flood into DSA chapters, it’s vital to standardize onboarding best practices: including text banking and phone banking new members, hosting DSA 101 new member orientations, and plugging new members into active mass work. In the run up to the campaign, the Growth and Development Committee should host trainings and provide resources for chapters, and the NPC should prioritize ensuring every chapter has an onboarding committee and team in place. Each committee at a local and national level should have its own internal onboarding sub-plans for how they will turn curious newcomers into long-term organizers. This preparation has the potential to be the decisive difference between DSA in 2020 and DSA in 2028: we know a wave of members is coming, and we know how to incorporate them into our long term work.

6. Internal political education. As new members flood into DSA, they will be curious about many elemental questions about our organization: the basics of how DSA works, what we believe, and how we apply our theory of change. Fortunately, DSA has codified our key beliefs and positions in our updated Workers Deserve More program. We should create basic standardized trainings on each point of WDM and extremely cheap-to-print zines of the program, and outlines of our basic positions. Alongside our ambitious comms push, we should devote energy toward internal education primers for new members. Additionally, where possible chapters should host reading groups and political education discussions—contra the idea that these events are counterposed to organizing, they can often prove the very sort of energizing and life changing events that make long term leaders. Caucuses also have a vital role to play, connecting to members, explaining the context of debates, and helping them connect to nationwide networks of organizers. 

7. Ensuring chapter grants are used effectively. DSA’s NPC recently approved a massively expanded chapter grants program. Using these grants effectively is vital to ensure we invest to grow our chapters. Three changes can prove particularly valuable, not just for short term gains, but to expand long term participation and engagement in the chapter. Firstly, new chapter offices (also supported by our office matching funds program!) can provide a storage and meeting space, a site to host phone banks and canvass kickoffs, a place to print materials, and a valuable brick-and-mortar location for address registration in legal and financial documents.

Chapter offices will be especially valuable as a place to store our canvassing material during our ambitious independent campaign. Reusable chapter materials, or supplies for bulk printing and sign-making is one of the most valuable investments a chapter can make. A strong sign and poster game can work wonders in raising the visibility and influence of DSA! Lastly, chapters can expand accessibility and professionalize their meetings with a good hybrid meeting setup. This can help expand participation in chapters massively. In Portland we often have a quarter of attendees over the hybrid Zoom system. A strong Zoom setup and an office also offer great ways to make new member orientations accessible.

8. Expanding staffing resources. As DSA sees our influx of members and enters into an ambitious campaigning period, we will need to scale up our staffing project. If our compliance structures are organized properly, we should be well prepared to plug new staff into chapter organizing and campaigning work. Alongside expanding the number of staff, DSA should consider areas where it is more sustainable and stable to our long term project to increase wages of certain staff and directors, and to set money aside for long term-savings. 

9. Regular campaign bulletins to members. As the campaign advances, members will be looking for updates and clarity on our organizing work, the results and adherence to campaign targets, and the emerging data from our massive nationwide push. This is especially vital if we commit to an independent campaign with our own message. DSA needs to set up a system of internal update bulletins from the campaign leadership, providing information to our members about where our work stands, the complications and contradictions we are running into while pursuing our strategy, key NPC votes, and our opinions and reactions to key campaign news.

10. Next steps at the 2028 Summer Organizing Conference. One of the biggest problems DSA faced in 2020, dramatically exacerbated by the rapid onset of Covid-19 shutdowns, was that our strategy didn’t plan for what to do after Bernie lost. In the summer of 2028, DSA will either be reflecting on a primary defeat, or preparing for a general election effort. Either way, our new members, downballot candidates, and the wider left will be looking to us for leadership. If we’ve run a strong independent campaign, DSA should be ready to launch our next phase of organizing work. We should use the summer conference as a chance to debrief, reflect on our success and failures, and kick off our next efforts. 

11. Perfect our compliance approach. This is the least exciting, but perhaps most important point in a whole presidential campaign. The far-right Trump administration will be looking for any opportunity to attack DSA. We must rigorously develop—indeed, perfect—a national and chapter compliance setup that ensures we stick to the law and have access to our data, our own materials, and DSA staff resources. This means, among other things, that we must hire a new compliance lawyer focused specifically on electoral/presidential compliance. This may sound boring, but far from merely being boxed we must check off, electoral compliance professionals can in fact help ensure we use the full range of campaigning opportunities legally available to us. If we are assured in our legal compliance, we can be absolutely assured in our campaign plan, and aggressively implement the strongest possible strategy while protecting our organization and our members. 

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If what we have laid out here speaks to you, if you want to see a DSA willing to get its hands dirty through an energetic and independent intervention in the 2028 elections, consider joining Reform & Revolution. We are a revolutionary Marxist caucus dedicated to qualitatively transforming DSA into the mass, fighting socialist party we desperately need. We base ourselves on the “transitional method,” a framework for bridging the gap between where working-class people are at now and the revolutionary consciousness necessary to transform society. This means advancing a system of demands in all areas of struggle which connects to workers’ day-to-day lives, raises the horizon of our class, and brings the movement into a confrontation with the basis of capitalist rule. Let’s get to work!