2022 Electoral Committee Report
In early 2022, California DSA elected a statewide Electoral Committee. The nine-person committee, co-chaired by two members of the State Committee, has met biweekly throughout this past CA-DSA term. Although CA-DSA’s start came too close to the 2022 elections for us to have a significant impact on those elections, we were enormously excited by the electoral successes of DSA chapters up and down the state last year.
The committee took on a few small tasks – issuing guidance to CA DSA chapters on engagement with the Democratic Party ADEM races, for instance – but our primary project has been organizing to support a 2024 Socialist Assembly Slate.
In fall 2022, the State Council passed the 2024 CA-DSA Electoral Vision, drafted by this committee, which set out a goal of running a slate of three to five democratic socialist class struggle candidates for the California State Assembly, specifically in districts that are strategically winnable, and in campaigns that “build class consciousness, strengthen DSA, root socialists in the multiracial working class, and have winnable objectives.”
Based on this goal, our committee produced a detailed research report* identifying target districts that could produce a viable democratic socialist Assembly victory in 2024, and is regularly bringing chapters together to collaborate on identifying democratic socialist candidates for those seats. Our next meeting will be on May 6th, at 2:30 pm. The committee encourages all DSA members to reach out to their chapter’s electoral committee or working group to get involved with candidate identification and campaign development, and to widely share CA-DSA’s Assembly Candidate Nomination Form.
If you are a DSA member in California with a strong interest in helping coordinate the CA-DSA Electoral Committee, please sign up here to join!
In solidarity,
Your California DSA Electoral Committee